


The Aged Ingénue

by lucius_complex



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan)
Genre: Fluff, Humor, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-30
Updated: 2013-03-20
Packaged: 2017-11-23 00:00:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 25
Words: 27,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/615837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucius_complex/pseuds/lucius_complex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The worse thing Jim Gordon ever did was shave off his moustache.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Death of a caterpillar

**Author's Note:**

> This story originally started out as a short fluffy story of 10 chapters. It ended up turning into a monster, mostly because the plot (what little there was of it) ran around peeing on everything like a stray dog, and yeah. Suffice to say I learnt a lot about what not to do the next time round. I want to say thank you the few readers (gaudy_night especially) who hung around (on LJ) and took the trouble to remind me not to give up; I absolutely don’t deserve such wonderful fans :P

 

**Chapter One: Death of a Caterpillar**

The worse thing Jim Gordon ever did was shave off his moustache. And the mirror must agree, judging by how taken aback the reflection across him looked.

Well, it certainly hadn’t made him look any  _younger_. All it did was made his face look scrawnier and his glasses more prehistoric.

Jim chanced a quick glance at the sink. A furry caterpillar stared back at him, looking somewhat betrayed. It _might_  have twitched.

_Right._

His brushes tentative fingers across bare lips. It felt... well,  _bare_. Exposed. 

Whatever had possessed him this to shear off sixteen years of carefully cultivated moustache out of the blue, Jim didn’t care to analyse. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to know the answer.

Wiping his face again, Jim shrugged to himself as he left the bathroom. It was just facial hair. Big deal. Nobody’s going to notice.

*

_Everybody_  noticed.

“Whoa, commissioner!”                                          

“Looking good, sir!”

“ _Very_  funny,” Jim sniped, and quickened his pace. As soon as he had walked through the GPD entrance this morning he’d realise he’d been overly optimistic about the little variation in his morning bathroom rituals going under the radar.

What he hadn’t been prepared for was the  _scale_  of how mistaken he was.

Behind him, somebody actually giggled.  _Giggled_. What sort of recruits were they bringing in these days?

Finally behind the safety of closed doors- not that they managed to completely block out the laughter rippling out on the working floor- Gordon ruefully shook his head and breathed out a sigh of relief, then realised that in his haste to escape into the relative sanctuary of his office he’d forgotten to grab any coffee.

It was going to be a very, very long- however long it takes to resurrect the caterpillar.

*

Even Mayor Gracia stared. “Are you  _dating,_  Jim?”

“No!” it occurred to Gordon that the belligerent tenor of his voice might use some toning down, this being the mayor he was talking to and all, but really, his nerves were taut and the back of his neck was still burning from all the unwanted attention.

“I meant it in a good way.” Mayor Gracia hurried to assure him. “I’m sure Bruce agrees.”

Gordon turned his glare on the other man in the room, who still seemed to be working his mouth soundlessly.

After several more moments of imitating a goldfish, Wayne finally said “indeed”, in a hoarse voice. The man had a thoroughly pole-axed look about him, like he’d started the day by running face first into a wall. Gordon pegged it down as the usual look for playboy billionaires who were roused before three pm; rumours of the Wayne board meetings being conducted to the chorus of his snoring were legend.

 “I’ll just wait outside until you’re ready for the week’s brief, Mayor.”

“Oh, we’re more than ready, Jim.” Wayne jovially replied. “Hit us.”

Gordon didn’t like the familiar way the billionaire said his name and wished the man hadn’t recovered his equanimity so fast. “Is Mister  _Wayne_  joining us today?”

“Ah yes, Bruce has very generously decided to take a keener interest in seeing what plans the GPD hold for the coming year, with budgets around the corner and his company desperately keen on negotiating a tax break on new securities in exchange for a token sum- yes yes deductibles Bruce, you favourite word I know- so I told him I’d be happy to set something up between you.”

“I see.”

 He didn’t. That little speech flew  _completely_  over Jim’s head, the way the mayor had no doubt intended it.

_And now_  Gordon misses his moustache, because there was suddenly nothing to hide his scowl behind anymore. Or muffle a discreet snort whenever the mayor called him into his office for another rambling, self-congratulatory monologue about how low the crime rate had gotten, like he actually had something to do with it.

“I’m not sure if this sort of thing would hold your interest for long, Mister Wayne,” Jim replied in a tone bordering on frigid.

“Call me Bruce, please.” Wayne’s smile had all the innocence of a shark.

Jim decided that his best course of action was to ignore the Armani clad man and turned to the Mayor instead. “The things I need to brief you about involve the city’s security. We may compromise everything if we allow someone like-”

“This is a great opportunity for us, Jim,” Mayor Gracia interrupted with a note of warning in his voice. Kohl wearing or not, the Mayor wasn’t a man who Gordon wanted to cross when there was the possibility of a generous campaign contribution on the horizon.

“Yes,  _Jim_. Listen to the mayor’s  _proposition_.”

With a barely muffled sign, ‘Jim’ pulled up a chair. “I’m all ears.”

*


	2. The Playboy’s Guide to Non-existent Innuendos, or, There’s Something about a Man in Uniform

 

“Quite a sudden change there, Commissioner.”

Gordon swung around. “I said it’s not funn-”

He found himself almost nose to nose to Wayne. Nose to mouth, actually, seeing as money did buy better genes, and the other man was a little taller, though not by so much. Money definitely bought good moisturizers, for Gordon couldn’t see a single _pore_. And very complex cologne.

The billionaire raised his hands disarmingly. “Uh, like Mayor Gracia, I also meant it in a good way.”

Jim carefully ~~backed~~ stepped away from the solid mass of male invading his personal space. “The mayor by virtue of his position may take liberties. You on the other hand, may not.”

He knew it was the wrong thing to say when Wayne’s shark-like smile widened even more.

“I think that I might finally be in a position to be jealous of Anthony. How atypical. Just exactly what sort of liberties were we talking about?”

Good heavens, was there some sort of rule in the Billionaire Playboy’s Guide on sniffing out innuendos that didn’t exist?

Frowning, he looked away. “I shouldn’t keep you for your lunch with the Mayor.”

Wayne stuffed his hands into his pockets, looking absurdly young, like a boy playing pretend in a man’s suit. “I don’t suppose you’d like to join us.”

“Got some paperwork down in DC with my name on it.”

“Too bad. Peralin’s duck confit is to die for.”

“Yes well, I’m sure you’ll both enjoy your lunch regardless.”

 _“Hmmm,_ ” the tone was non-committal. Wayne had snorted good-naturedly at his comment, but there was something vaguely sardonic in his expression. The odd thing about it was that Jim sensed that it was self-directed; except that somebody like Bruce Wayne would never harbor any self doubt- his lot were simply born into thinking the world owed them a living. Jim had listened to enough bombastic laments during his ticket writing years as a rookie to take that lesson to hard.

Still, it was none of his business, and he turned to go before somebody else came along and started another round of commentary about his appearance. “I’ll see you around then, Mister Wayne.”

“How about tomorrow instead?”

 _Surely_ he’d misheard. “Pardon?”

Wayne had the gall to move a little closer, apparently having as much respect for personal space as he did for Gotham’s speed limits. “Anthony and I intend to discuss our plans for the annual GDP Charity Gala. Raise some money for new uniforms? We’d love to have your input.”

 _“Galas_ are not my area of expertise.”

“Oh come on, Jim. I’m sure a man as focused as yourself would be accomplished in any field that catches your fancy.”

The notion that Wayne was making more innuendos dawned upon Jim, which was of course, utterly preposterous. “I’m a lot more interested in criminals than the criminally rich.”

Rather than look sheepish, Wayne actually laughed. “Your discrimination is showing, Jim. And I’d have you know my last party quite successfully intertwined the two, albeit in slightly unforeseen... ways. Besides, you’re saying that you’ll only be willing to spend more time with me if I went out and robbed a few banks. That could be construed as _incitement.”_

Was Bruce Wayne of all people trying to- _naaaaah_. Jim rallied his thoughts together. ‘Mister Wayne, I really think-”

“Call me Bruce.”

Jim exhaled irritably as whatever he was about to say suddenly eluded him. Damn the man for upsetting his equilibrium. “You’ve never been interested before. Why start now?”

Wayne’s voice was silky. “Oh, I don’t know. There’s something about a man in uniform.”

Forget innuendos, Wayne had just torpedoed them straight into the Realm of Blatant Flirting. And god, he was sure that his face was flaming, even though he knew that he no longer wore a uniform and hadn’t needed one in years.

Jim raised his voice to cover the sudden panic. “Mister Wayne, the GDP is not a costumed doll house for you to dress up and parade at one of your parties. So if you really intend to contribute, I suggest you take it up with accounts.”

“I will if you reconsider dinner.”

“Dinner- what happened to _lunch?_ ”

This time Wayne’s answering smile was complex; a vague mixture of amusement, warmth and forbearance. His dark chocolate eyes reflected a strange combination of laziness and intensity.

“I just remembered a prior appointment. Very important. Unless, of course, you’d like to do both-”

Jim really didn’t like the way Bruce Wayne smiled. He also knew a strategic defeat when he saw one. Waving a disgruntled hand, he huffed out “Dinner will do.”

Agree to anything, beat a hasty retreat, and then get his secretary to send his apologies from the relative safety of a barricaded office.

“Splendid. And Jim?”

“What?” He just wanted this day to be over, he really did.

“You should keep the clean shave. Its a good look on you.” Oddly, Wayne’s tone had started light and breezy and tapered off into something approaching intense. Then the man was gone, leaving Jim standing in front of the elevator feeling as if two conversations had taken place instead of one.

*


	3. The Nature of Epiphanies

 

 

  
Bruce had a good nose for trouble, and he was pretty sure he was in a lot of it right now. Bruce was sure of this, the way he was sure that Lucius will never resign no matter how many hissy fits he throws, and Jim Gordon would find some way to get out of tomorrow’s dinner, no matter what he promised.

He was also pretty sure that he’d never be able to look the commissioner in the mouth- that is to say in the face again.

But while he felt sure he can keep the leer off his face, he’s not quite certain if his libido will stay in hell, where it belongs, and not rear its ugly.. head, at inopportune moments. Which would be whenever Jim Gordon was around. 

He hadn’t really intended to make a move when he spied the harried commissioner scurrying for the lifts. After being laughed out of Anthony’s office, Bruce had been intent on making his own swift escape when he had heard the catcalls and woof whistles that dodged the commissioner as he fled the work floors- Gordon’s face had been a flaming red, looking very put-upon, and oh, he was the height of adorable.

Bruce reasoned that given the circumstances, he really hadn’t stood a chance.

Of course, learning from Anthony that he was now divorced and eligible again didn’t help. The moment Gordon had left the room the Mayor had crossed his arms and stared him down, looking torn between horror and amusement.

“ _James Gordon_ , Bruce? Isn’t he a little... advanced in his years, for you?”

Bruce had briefly toyed with the idea of denying for all his worth, but then he remembered his less than dignified reaction to the commissioner’s entrance. 

“He’s not  _that_  old.”

“I don’t want to know,” the Mayor had held out his hands. “Hell, people with money have the oddest taste, the whole world knows that. Fate’s way of finding equilibrium, perhaps.”

Bit rich, Bruce had thought, coming from a man who wears kohl to work. “Perhaps.”

“You’re Gotham City’s crown price, so I know better than to stand in your way. Do what you like, but I want him fit for work at all times, Bruce, I mean it.” Anthony warned. “And for God’s sake,  _wait_  till the divorce comes through properly, at least. I don’t want to find my office besieged with calls for resignation if the media ever gets a sniff of this.”

“Jim Gordon is getting _divorced?”_

Anthony had regarded at him with a sinking expression. “Oh  _dear_.”

And that was that.

But really, it was all Gordon’s fault. What was he thinking, going around exposing himself like this? No wonder the GPD was in an uproar. It was almost indecent; he swore some Muslim countries made it illegal. Its effects on his libido certainly ought to be.

Bruce felt betrayed. Really, it seems like the commissioner had been the one wearing the mask all along.

The truth was that he had for some time now been a little more interested in the new commissioner than strictly healthy. It had all started quite by accident, on a night when Bruce was driving- that is,  _attempting_  to drive back to his penthouse, innocent as you please, when out of the blue he got pulled over by the chief commissioner, who so happens was the sort of man who considers 3 am a suitable time to clock off from work.

Jim Gordon had  _not_  been pleased to see Bruce plastered to the steering wheel of a 200-miles-an-hour killing machine. He was also not willing to listen to Bruce’s semi-coherent justification about there being no discreet place he could find to tip the endless rounds of champagne into and how there was only so many times he could forget where he left his last glass before someone offered to chain one to his wrist.

Because really, who would believe that the best kept secret in Gotham is not that Bruce Wayne was Batman, but that Bruce Wayne couldn’t hold down a goddamm drink without being overcome by a strong need to molest to the nearest vertical surface. Which was why he always preferred to throw the parties instead of the other way around- a smart combination of Alfred and multiple dumping grounds masquerading as tasteful water features ensured that his collective drinking did not exceed that of one or two glasses a night.

The night Gordon had pulled him over, Bruce had imbibed four, and had been resorting to esoteric methods learnt from eastern monks to control the tattered remains of his consciousness. It worked, but barely, and the commissioner had sussed out the ‘barely’ part pretty quickly.

Which lead to Bruce finding himself blinking blearily at the contraption that man was holding out.

“Whaazah?”

“Its a breath analyser Mister Wayne, I’m sure you’ve used one before. You put it your mouth into the nozzle and blow. Hard.”

Oh, Bruce knew it was his brain that was supplying, no, imagining all that innuendo.

He leaned too near, “ah fink ah noe you, ah, Gor-don, you are gorgon, aren’t you?”

“Mister Wayne, I won’t ask again.”

Bruce can no longer remember what he said in reply, but he does remember the long suffering sigh from the commissioner, followed by an order to “Just, open your mouth, Wayne.” And then Gordon had inserted a long tube into his mouth and Bruce would never, ever forget the sensation of wrapping his lips around a tube held by Jim Gordon while being told to blow.

Bruce also had no idea that one’s imagination could remain so- perky, when the rest of one’s self was already half dead with drink. Not that it was his fault, because really, how else was a drunk, miserably lonely man supposed to react?

And then, because torture and potential humiliation went so well together, Jim Gordon had forced Bruce to get out of the Ferrari, where his legs had promptly gave way under him, and Bruce had found himself being half carried, half dragged into the commissioner’s sedan and strapped into the passeanger seat with a stern warning not to puke in his car. And because he was too far gone to even stay up in his seat, Gordon had braced an arm on his shoulder the entire night to keep him upright.

He needn’t have worried on  _that_  account, Bruce had no problems maintaining upright all the way back. Even drunk as shit, he had been hard all the way back. The  _excruciatingly long_  drive back, the palisades being at the far limits of town. He swore to move back to the penthouse.

Gordons fault. Gordons fault. He just had to remember that.

It was the only mantra that kept Bruce sane these days.

 

 

*


	4. Etiquette and the Art of Avoidance

 

Jim hated parties with a passion.

Especially when ‘guest of honor’ was simply civil-speak for ‘most engaging circus monkey of the week’.

Especially when the dog on display happened to be the Commissioner of Gotham. The very much put upon, polished up and paraded Commissioner of Gotham, whose hidden job scope apparently includes putting on a monkey suit, a cravat, and most difficult of all, a goddamn  _smile,_  and shaking hands with a class of people whose only notion of crime equates to the commission of a fashion faux pas.

He might have succeeded in worming out of last week’s dinner, but Wayne had succeeded in winnowing out every escape route to the GDP benefit; even worse, he had alerted the mayor of them. Which meant that Jim had came in to work this morning to find a pair of stony-faced escorts outside his office with the fear of Gracia instilled in them: which was to say that orders, threats and cajoles slid through them like water off a ducks back.  

That last bit would earn Wayne his eternal enmity, Jim decided as he watched the soiree host across the ballroom grinning out at him with an unholy glee that bordered on demonic. The man obviously got his rocks off on retaliation; small wonder that Wayne Enterprises had lately been going from strength to strength. There must be something to be said for half grown boys like Wayne going about their business as if they were playing with toy soldiers; aside from a tendency to be creative, limits and notions of impossibility simply wouldn’t occur to them.

Perhaps the man deserved his cut-throat business reputation after all. Underneath that blinding, unnaturally white teeth was a wily and relentless mind who had no qualms about using any means to get what he wants. Hell, he probably considered Micheavali toilet reading material.

Wayne 2, Gordon 0

“The commissioner is expected to  _circulate_ , Jim.”  Mayor Gracia suddenly hissed at him out of the corner of his mouth. “ _Talking_  has been known to be involved.”

“I’m warming up,” Jim replied defensively, fingers worrying at the ridiculous cravat he had been forced to wear.

“You’re no longer in MCU, Jim, this is a whole new league. I swear, I’ll send you for PR classes if you don’t at least learn how to crack a joke.”

Gordon had snorted, but his retort died a quick death when the mayor had looked at him, kholed eyes promising a life of protracted torture, and said with a perfectly straight face:

“I’m certain I can persuade our host to give you private instructions on how to work a crowd. Bruce might be an airhead, but he’s an accommodating airhead, and he owes a few favours.”

And then he had walked away, leaving Jim feeling that he should really take more effort to remember that the Mayor was Italian, and the penchant for threats and torment therefore came naturally to him.

In fact if he didn’t know better, he’d say that the two were in cahoots. He had caught a subtle look exchanged between the two men, no doubt one of those obscure palavers in the language of private-listed schools and ivy league educations, cruise holidays in Monaco and soirees and what haves yous.  A world of gross excesses that eluded Jim’s understanding.

Gordon was sure there was a joke between them somewhere, almost certainly at his expense. He didn’t want to find out.

Tonight Wayne was surrounded by his usual ring of toadies and sycophants tonight. A bevy of European models in slinky jewel toned gowns orbited his circumference like languid butterflies, flitting around the other guest but always returning to Wayne to wait upon some obscure form of acknowledgment or approval that only he seemed to be able to give.

Jim never did understand how anyone could allow another person to have such power over them. Still, he’d spent his life watching people’s reaction to money, made a living out of enforcing that obscure, frequently vacillating line between livelihood and self-indulgence.

On somebody like Bruce Wayne, the smell of cash was probably as strong as turpentine.

He wondered briefly if he was being unfair, judging all of Wayne’s appeals based solely on wealth rather than any of his own merits. He might be a philistine and a fop but he certainly wasn’t an idle one; whatever he was hiding under that tuxedo looked  _very_ solid.

“Jim!”

“Aly C, back from the dead.” Jim returned the hug, smiling. Aly was one of those rare women who was not only razor sharp, but nursed an addiction to subterfuge and slow detective games, which made her a prime candidate for long undercover missions. Jim was lucky if they met once a year. He was even luckier if he recognized her before she lead him up the garden path and then proceed to laugh her head of at him.

“Worse. Back from Metropolis.”

Jim chuckled. “You survived. Got the bust you wanted?”

Aly nodded happily. “Ol’ ringmaster finally showed his face, and wham! Now we just fight over which city gets to lock his ass up for good.”

Jim plucked two olive martinis from a passing tray. “Congrats are in order.”

“For both of us, apparently,  _Commissioner_ Gordon new-boss sir,” the voice was arched.

“Congrats for you and condolences for me then.”

Aly clinked their glasses together and tossed hers back. “Hmm. Might have to share. That might have been my last undercover.”

Jim raised a speculative brow. “Getting tired of all that sneaking around?”

“Naw, just getting old. We’re no spring chickens, you and I. Last week I actually woke up thinking that a desk job is beginning to sound appealing.”

Jim snorted. “Take mine.”

Her sharp features were accessing. “That bad, he?”

“I’ll even throw in money.”

“I was surprised when I read the papers.” Aly admitted. “Why’d you take it?”

Jim sighed. “I don’t know. Its like a plate being passed around, you know, with the last slice and I happened to be the last person in line. At that time it seemed rude to decline.”

“And now you’re stuck.”

“Now I’m stuck.” One thing Jim liked about Aly, he didn’t have to smoothen out his explanations- she understood intrinsically and never prompted for explanations.

“Too bad. You picks it up, you eats it,” Aly said smugly.

Correction: he  _used_  to like Aly. “Perhaps you should retire. You’ve obviously been hanging out with the gangsters too long.”

She laughed instead, and stole the olive he had been saving up for last. He returned the favor by flicking the remainders of his martini at her.

“Oi! Watch the new dress!” Aly mock-glared at him. “Stop playing with your food, mister new-boss sir. Now you owe me a dance.”

Jim rolled his eyes and extended his arm to her. “I expect repayment in olives.”

They left the glasses on fireplace mantle and moved into the dance flow, still laughing. Jim liked the music- a jazzy, lazy tune that took the edge of the formality of the evening. 

“Hey, Jim, does my dress look like it really from the twenty dollar bin I dug it out of?”

Jim frowned. “No, you look like a million bucks.”

“Spinach in my teeth?”

“No, why?”

“Then why is Bruce Wayne glaring daggers at me?”

Jim’s head swiveled at Wayne’s direction- a little too fast, his internal voice chided, and collided with the most intensely disapproving stare he’d ever seen the man wear.

*


	5. Portrait of an (oblivious) Police Commissioner

 

Bruce Wayne had died and gone to hell.

The plan had come so easily to him as he had been driving to the benefit: show up, smile, say something smooth, shake hands, and scoot off. Easy. All he had to do was keep his distance from two things- the guest of honor, and the alcohol.

So far he’d avoided the alcohol by scoffing at the vintage and avoided Gordon by staking himself firmly in the midst of the snootiest, most supercilious clique he could find. Knowing the commissioner, he’d rather commit hara-kiri than come within polite nodding distance.

All things considered, he was off to an admirable start, really.

What Bruce hadn’t been so successful at controlling was the movement of his own eyes, and rooted to the spot, his hungry gaze had actively stalked the commissioner move around the floor, avoiding the very people he was supposed to meet. The man was wearing a cravat tonight, almost certainly one of Anthony’s extravagant contrivances, and Bruce was willing to bet money that the commissioner hadn’t stop fiddling with the ends since he’d put it on.   

Bruce grinned. The commissioner’s behaviour so far that night had bordered on outrageous, the way he’d slinked around the fringes of the hall, making monosyllable noises that barely passed of as adequate greetings. For such a brave man, Jim was a downright lily-livered coward when it came squaring his shoulders and facing the social squad face on. Bruce wished he didn’t find it so adorable. It made putting up with the mundane chatter beside him more tedious than usual.

And thus to pass the time, every time the commissioner had looked up and caught him staring Bruce would let the Cheshire smile on his face widen until Gordon scowled, broke their gaze and turned away to pointedly ignore him. Of course, every time this happened Bruce would feel his throat tighten a little more, the blood thrum a little more insistently in his veins, the real world fall a little further away, and it became a harder to slip back into the social façade of haughty indifference.

It wasn’t terribly long before he begun to realise that his self-imposed security tactic wasn’t really working terribly well, and safety in numbers only went so far.  

Sighing internally, Bruce wondered if he was fooling anybody other than himself. He certainly wasn’t fooling Antony, if that look of disgust he was giving him now was anything to go by.

And Alfred wonders why he prefers being Batman to Bruce Wayne.

If Batman had been the one here tonight instead of Bruce all he’d have to do was growl ‘mine’ and dragged Gordon back to his cave the same way he tussled and dragged Lau off to prison. Except perhaps the act would be immensely more pleasurable, and the only justice he’d be serving is his own libido.  

And it was a struggle, not to use the Batsuit to further his own ends. It was not what he created the vigilante for, although he was damnably tempted-

Across the room, Jim Gordon was sniffing suspiciously at a canapé that he had just picked up. Bruce watched, ogle eyed, as the commissioner looked furtively around before licking it experimentally.

No, it wasn’t a struggle. It was _torture._  Bruce closed his eyes and concentrated on maintaining his sanity. Somehow the knowledge that Jim might be a lot more receptive to his advances if he’d shown up as Batman rather than Bruce Wayne didn’t help. He’d seen the light in Jim’s eyes when the Bat had showed up, even on days when the GDP had things well under control; So solid, so constant and reliable was the waves of approval and appreciation undulating from Jim that Bruce had been sucker punched by them at first, almost uneasy. But then he had basked in them like a cat under the honeyed sun, and then come to sorely depend on it.

A far cry from the flat, slightly distasteful looks he received as Bruce Wayne.

And he was happy to appreciate the commissioner back in return. Jim Gordon was painfully shy but commanded effortlessly; a natural, if slightly reluctant leader. His men loved him and obeyed his directives unquestioningly in times of need, but not out of fear if the riotous teasing they subjected him to in times of peace was anything to go by. His loyalty was unquestionable, and he’d work himself half to death, given the chance: and as far as Bruce was concerned he’d already been given the chance too many times.

And there was a breakable aspect to Jim Gordon that belied his inherent strength. His gaze usually skittered like a gazelle rather than the lion he’s proven time and again to be: perhaps the reason behind the GDP being just as protective of Gordon was Gordon was of them.

The loyalty of a force, the loyalty of an entire city; these were things not given freely or easily. Gordon had earned it, but more, he simply embodied good, the good that was in everyone _,_  almost in the way a child would represent it. He was a cynical man with so much faith in his staff and his city, so tired but filled with so much _hope_  that the people around him couldn’t help but be insipired.

Bruce knew that in the darkness that constantly threatened to engulf Gotham, it was Jim Gordon who was the true white knight, the everyman, the city’s real champion, encompassing and willingly taking on the nobler aspects of a public fight and the darker, more sordid underbelly of the law. And Jim would keep this other, darker fight invisible, so nobody else would have to confront the human capacity for darkness, and ordinary people could continue to think that it wasn’t necessary for good people to get their hands dirty. It made the city, the force, Bruce himself, wanted to believe in him, protect him, watch over him.

Well, maybe Bruce wanted to do a little more than just watching.

Really, though, its almost like his.. reward. Didn’t the Gotham city, GPD,  _Gordon_ , owe him? Watching their chief commissioner wrap his lips around a coffee cup was small recompense.

Gordon drinks his shitty, stone-cold two dollar coffee like Zeus himself had anointed his cup with ambrosia. Bruce knows- Batman has watched this often enough (yet not often enough) from the sympathetic safety of the shadows before announcing his arrival. Lately, he’d often had to adjust his armour before coming into the light. Lately, speaking in low, guttural tones in front of the commissioner hadn’t take any effort at all.

He wished he felt guiltier about the bits and pieces of voyeurism, but Bruce knows that he’s a decent man, so it’s all right. It’s not like he’s some lurking psychopath stalker.

Besides, better him than somebody else.

There had better  _not_  be anybody else.

*


	6. The green-eyed girl eater

 

Apparently, there _might_ just be somebody else.

Bruce watched under narrowed eyes as an unreasonably attractive woman who was much too young grab the commissioner from behind and hugged him with an effusiveness more suited to a year end pub party than a respectable formal gala.   

His frown deepened when Gordon returned the hug, a genuine smile curling his lips and softening his features. The usually impassive commissioner was revealing an exceptionally gentle and tender side, his laughter quiet; not the type to fill a room, but the kind one strained to hear, the small upward quirk of the lips that one felt privileged to witness. It was a smile Bruce found insanely attractive and felt immensely left out of, standing ten feet away in the cold tinkle of chatter and champagne flutes.

The candles and chandeliers cast their lonely shadows about him as he stared at the warm, mirthful, slightly flirtatious exchange by the fireplace.  A voice rudely interrupted Bruce from his reverie.

“I say Bruce, old bean, have you ever heard of such a thing?”

“I can’t imagine it.” Bruce answered abstractly, his eyes still glued on the commissioner.

“I’d say the same thing, yes. Those upstarts nowadays, so bold-”

“Like a hussy,” Bruce replied with more venom than the comment warranted, raising a few eyebrows and one spying glass.

“Ahem. Sounds like personal experience,” somebody said, hopping for another famous Bruce Wayne story that he could tell his friends about tomorrow.

“You could say that.”

“And with the scale of investments that our man usually makes, it’s no wonder, eh Bruce? So much to lose from these marauders, no respect really, for common decency,”

“Indeed,” Bruce voice was grim as he watched the palaver across the room with a souring jealousy that grew by the moment. Soft music was striking up, couples wondering onto the dance floor to take advantage of the languid environment, their daily crime-fighting duties forgotten.

Distracted, he turned just in time to see the commissioner laughing _aloud_ , oh god, Jim Gordon was laughing in _public_ , flicking the contents of his glass at her, and Bruce thought he might be suffering from internal bleeding because he suddenly needed to sit down.

“Well really,” Lady Yaniventor was asking, “could that really be the new commissioner and his partner, frolicking yonder? He does look quite  _changed_.”

“That’s our man of the hour all right.... and with a  _very_  pretty new bird on his arm, I must say.”

“Nothing like a divorce and a fancy promotion to get the blood going again, eh, George?”

“So  _nice_  to see our officers having a good time, Bruce, you’re doing  _such_  a wonderful job-”

Bruce nodded dumbly, and from his prison of sycophants and cronies watched them link arms like children and move down to the dance floor and reflected bitterly on the ironic nature of his doom. Fated to be driven insane by  _Jim Gordon_ , of all people.  _Why_  did life deem him so uniquely suited to such epiphanies?

*

“He can’t be looking at us,” Jim said dismissively. Although Wayne did look like he had swallowed the glass along with his two hundred dollar champagne. Probably some gazillion dollar investment gone awry.

Aly swung him around abruptly so that she could get a better look. “Friends in high places now, eh, new-boss sir? Hmm. He’s even dishier in real life than I’d imagine.”

“Less than twenty four hours back in PD after a year of crawling about with the sewer rats and you’re setting your sights on Gotham’s playboy prince?”

“One thing dem gangsta got right is that you gotta get your goals real high.” Aly tossed her hair, probably imitating one of the many ‘personalities. “That’s how you get em, new-boss sir, that’s how they never expect ya.”

Jim rolled his eyes as Aly giggled. “Look at the cameras eat him up.”

“He’s the only guy in Gotham they don’t have to airbrush prior to publication.”

“Now that comment might just be a little unfair to poor Anthony, Jim.” Aly waged a mischievous finger at him. Mayor Gracia was now standing next to Wayne, probably kissing ass for all his worth – the rumours that Wayne was on the verge of making a personal donation to the mayor’s coffers, over and above the proceeds of the benefit were rife.

“A lighter hand on the kohl would not go amiss,” Jim murmured, and they both laughed. Wayne’s arms were folded, his mouth set in a hard line: it seems doubtful that the mayor was going to score any major points tonight, donation wise.

Odd that they both seemed to be staring so intensely at the dance floor though. Jim surreptitiously scanned the dance floor for any intriguing figures that might be holding their interest.

*

“Could you be any more obvious?”

“Ah, Anthony. How long did it take you to learn how to speak from the side of your mouth like that?”

“Very funny, Bruce. A little self control really wouldn’t go amiss here.”

“So would a little  _help_  from old friends, old friend.”

Anthony looked amused. “Old friends help each other help themselves.”

“Help begets help. And a little help goes a  _long_  way, Anthony. A  _long_  way.”

The mayor’s kohl-lined eyes took on a speculative gleam. “Exactly  _how_  long are we talking about?”

Bruce snorted. “Do you really need to ask?”

“Well. Well, well well well. Lets go then.”

“Go?”

“Come on, the song’s about to end,” Anthony said decisively, grabbing Bruce by the arm and steering them into the dance floor. “And just so you know, Bruce, you really have the most atrocious taste.”

*

“Don’t look now but they’re making a beeline here.”

Jim frowned. “You weren’t seriously considering?”

“Why not? He’s a dish, and he’s rich.”

“People like him have little girls like you for breakfast.” Jim lowered his voice as the two men approached- from their purposeful stride it seemed inevitable now that they were really headed towards them.

Aly rolled her eyes. “Yes sir, daddy new-boss sir.”

He twirled Aly away just as the song came to an end with a grunt and a look that said ‘behave’ and told himself not to worry. She was probably better at taking care of herself than he had ever been at that age, Jim thought with a sigh as he made to hand her over to Wayne-

“Dance, Miss Cheamer?”

Except that it was Mayor Gracia who offered her his arm.

 

*


	7. The five million dollar five cents tour

Jim stood there helplessly as the Mayor of Gotham whisked Aly away, leaving him alone on the dance floor with the city’s more irrepressible playboy.

“So. Would you like to dance as well?” Bruce Wayne held up his hand and asked in a jovial, perfectly solicitous voice, as if Jim had waltzed into the room this evening in a red ball gown and a fan instead of his cheap white tux.

“I don’t think so.” Jim could already feel the collective curiosity of the other dancers milling around him and god, he was mortified. “I think I need to-”

“-go relieve yourself from all that champagne?” Bruce nodded. “So do I, come to think of it. Come on, I’ll give you the five cents tour along the way.”

So eager was Jim to escape the attention that he practically ran ahead of Bruce, who nodded to the other dancers as casually as a king as he strolled by.

The minute they reached the relatively safety of the bar however, Wayne was dragging him along again. “This way,” he said, gesturing them to a service alley with a wink. “Secret passageway.”

Feeling slightly dumb, Jim asked, “What for?”

“Don’t you want to escape the throng?”

The commissioner didn’t hesitate. “Lead on.”

The hall they ended up in was empty and silent, cold white marble walls and warm maroon carpet. Jim inhaled the cooler air with a sigh of relief, grateful to be out of the circus. At the corner of his eye he saw Wayne watching him with a bemused expression.

“You really don’t like crowds, do you?”

“I’m a cop.” Jim rather found it a good, succinct answer, one he had often used on Barbara whenever he got into trouble, but Wayne just looked more bemused, although he did thankfully fall silent.

He examined the new wing of the Gotham library that had just been opened today. It was a massive addition, tripling its size and collection and putting it on the map as one of the most valuable and coveted libraries in the country. The dredges of the day’s celebration- balloons, ribbons and programs, littered the floor.

Jim had ‘missed’ the unveiling ceremony just before the gala, having adamantly refused to come any earlier than he had to, and now he felt his eyes widen at the massive oil painting which decorated the main marble-clad public hall.

Its entire length was draped in white satin, flowing like a river of milk to the floor. The frame of the painting itself was intricately wrought: plaster cherubs painted in heavenly shades of dove grey and white, reminding Jim of celestial statues found in old grave yards. In harsh juxtaposition was the canvass itself, eight feet in height and stretching expansively from one side of the wall to the other: its dark washes and harsh streaks of colour exuded rawness and violence.

Dark horses pulling strange, nightmarish carriages raced around a cityscape at night with dogs yapping at their feet. It was an allusion to Gotham, and despite being heavily stylized Jim could make out the GDP building, central hospital, and the old opera house. And right in the centre, the unmistakable shape of Wayne Tower rising out of the earth like a huge monolith, portentous and possessive, burned into Jim’s skull.

It was one of the most dazzling things that he’d had ever laid eyes on before.

“So there’s where they decided to put my painting!”

Apparently, the painting’s benefactor had missed the unveiling too. Jim tried not to roll his eyes.

A discrete silver plaque by the side read ‘Hebdomeros’, made possible by the generous donation of B Wayne’ Engrossed in the art, he almost jumped when a hand touched him, very lightly on the back.

“Looks good,” Wayne said, looking satisfied. “I didn’t have the chance to see it, but the artist was true to his vision. What do you think?”

Suddenly, Jim couldn’t believe that Wayne hadn’t known where his painting was, but the notion that he’d deliberately brought Jim to see it was incredulous, so he ignored it, and examined the painting instead. It was rather morbid and very strong, and it wasn’t the least like something Jim could imagine the likes of Bruce Wayne appreciating. Likely the man had bought it on a lark and then foisted off on the library when it didn’t quite meet his taste.

“I really don’t know anything about art.”

“Oh, come on.”

Jim hesitated. “Its...” complex, disturbing, ominous, oedipal. “It’s very assertive.”

Wayne’s smile could have powered up Gotham city on Christmas day.

“She’s a beautiful city.” There was a strange light in Wayne’s eyes, a foreboding shiver ran up Jim’s spine that was a little belated to be caused by the painting.

Jim’s gaze drifted to the door they had excited from. “It’s probably safe to go back by now.”

Bruce turned to face him, earnest and unnaturally grave. “Why do you love Gotham, Jim?”

He shrugged in an attempt to elevate the cloud around them. “She’s my city,” he said simply. Jim never had a flair for words, nor did he ever want to cast them in any nostalgic light. He wasn’t derisive of others who did, he simply didn’t have the time.

“Home,” Bruce said, his eyes hooded, and there was hoarseness to the man’s voice that was reminiscence of something, something not right.

They were all, again, sides of Bruce Wayne that Jim wasn’t sure he wanted to become acquainted to. At the same time, Jim felt reluctant to break the strange thickness that seemed to be settling in the air around them, shrinking the space, almost muffling it.

This new Bruce was fascinating, guiltily fascinating; almost in a morbid, animalistic sense, as handsome and impeccable as a race horse, as restless and relentless as wild one.

The billionaire’s voice was still hoarse as he turned the floodlights of his gaze back to Jim.

“Jim, I-”

He really shouldn’t have let Aly waltzed of with the mayor tonight. She’d have been much better at handing the strange, Gemini-faced creature that the billionaire had become.

And when a pair of tanned, loquacious hands bridged the air between them, and the knowledge of Wayne’s intention hit him in the gut, Jim was floored, helpless, suddenly drowned in too much knowledge.

He tried to pull away, but the action felt too feeble, his mind had gone blank. Then Wayne said ‘please’ in that voice, good god, that voice, hands arresting Jin’s escape and attempting to sooth away his growing hysteria, and suddenly their tables were turned, and Jim was the animal: a tiny thing with its heart beat tripling, locked in some sort of seizure as Wayne’s face descended, and _oh god in heaven_ he was about to be kissed by another _man_.

*


	8. Persona Non Gracia, or, How to Lose Friends and Alienate Mayors

 

Bright and early at eight am the next morning, there was a commotion outside Anthony Gracia’s office.

“You _cannot_ go in without an appointment, Commissioner!”

“Watch me.”

Where most men of high office had a tendency of surrounding themselves with beautiful personal assistants, Anthony Gracia had preferred hulking, impassive mountain women who could bully and intimidate his appointees, scoff at their self importance, and generally reduce any larger-than-it-should-be egos into whimpering, suitably cowed things by the time they entered his personal area. On a normal day, Jim finds this amusing, even somewhat inspired. Today, he finds it tiresome in the extreme.

“ _Mister_  Gordon! You  _cannot_ -“

The mayor of Gotham City didn’t even look up from his morning brief as Jim banged dramatically through the doors.

“I see you’ve got my numbers.”

“This is, this is-” Jim shook his head, still in a daze. The sum that Wayne Industries had just bequeathed to GPD has been generous beyond Jim’s comprehension. “It can’t be real.”

“It’s real. Have some coffee; you look like you need it.” Mayor Gracia waved a negligent hand at the pot on the table as he picked up his own cup. “Did you even manage to catch any sleep last night? I heard the whole department really let themselves go last night.”

_Don’t. Say anything._

Except there was a split second of silence which Jim knew he should have filled a little faster. “We’ll be seeing a lot of hangovers today from our boys, but the loaned manpower from Metropolis should cover. Now about this grant-”

“What about it?”

“I need to know that its not some lark. This changes everything, it’s going to change every decision we make from today. So I need to know if it’s going to… fly.”

“Both you and I know that Bruce does have a penchant for doing things on a lark. Except in his case they’re more Hawker 800s  _shaped_  like larks. But you’d never be in want after this, not for years to come.”

Jim salivated at the prospects- new equipment for the work floors, a total overhaul of the prehistoric radio system that the  boys on the ground had been making do with for years. The recruits would finally be sent for the team-building courses they deserved. Jim would never have to swallow his pride and ‘borrow’ more equipment from Batman.

They could outfit every level of the GDP and still have money leftover for one of those sleek looking coffee machines with fancy levers, with fittings for two cups.

With  _foam_.

Jim could almost  _taste_  the new espresso.

“Still see Wayne as a waste of space?”

“The man has his heart in the right place,” Jim grudgingly admitted.  _Just not his hands._

“Once in a while, at least,” the Mayor laughed.

 “Well, I should go. Good news to be shared with the men.”

“There’s just one small thing, Jim.”

“Which is?”

Gracia coughed and drummed his fingers on the table, a sure sign of discomposure. “A certain clause in the contract. A small one.”

Jim blinked. “I don’t understand.”

“Wayne is giving us the money, there is no doubt of that. It’s already set up in trust. But he’s the one who decides where, when and to whom,” the mayor broke off, coughed again, except that this time Jim had the ugly suspicion that he was trying not to laugh. “Essentially he wants somebody to explain the little things to him.”

“Ah, well. A little inconvenient perhaps, but I guess that’s not a problem. We could always send Finance over to dance some figures over-”

“He doesn’t want numbers, Jim. Bruce has more accountants in his office than we have cops in ours.”

“What does he want then? Someone to explain the ABCs of policing?”

“Amongst other things.” The Mayor coughed in into his fist, except that Jim remembers he’d yet to take the first sip from his cup.

“I’ll get somebody to go over to Wayne Tower with a colouring book and some sweets, Mayor.” Jim said, rising quickly from his chair. He had a feeling that whatever the mayor was about to say, he’d rather not hear.

“Ah… no, Commissioner. It has to be you.”

Jim froze in his half rise from the mayor’s chair.  _He couldn’t know._

“I-  _absolutely_  not.”

“Now, Jim-”

 “The agreement you faxed me has already been  _signed_ -” Jim’s voice went an octave higher as he held up the filofax.

“Maybe he likes your face,” the Mayor speculated with perfectly a straight face.

Almost.

 _He knows._ Horrified beyond belief, praying that the heat crawling up his neck was in no way a blush, Jim decided that his entrance should be capped by an equally abrupt exit.

“The answer’s still no. Good day, mayor.”

“But  _Jim_ -”

The doors banged shut behind Jim, who leaned against it and tried to gather his breath.

Come hell or high water, he was  _not_  going to meet Bruce Wayne again, new uniforms and shinny new coffee machine be dammed. He just wasn’t.

Jim was sure live his loyal colleagues wouldn’t mind making the sacrifice.

*

“Ah, so here’s the fall guy. I was looking everywhere for you.”

Jim grumbled, but made space next to the boiler machine he had been moodily eating his sandwich on.  

“You better not rat on me.”

“You reckon the guys upstairs are going to talk to you anytime this year?” Aly asked ask she unwrapped her own sandwich with a  breezy inconsequence that spoke volumes of her sympathy for Jim; or rather its lack thereof. 

“Why are you here then?”

“Oh I don’t know. Don’t think it’s a good idea to snub the new boss,” she said archly. “Wouldn’t want to screw up my bonus reviews.” 

“I don’t suppose you’d like to take my place.”

Aly shook her head with a laugh. “You don’t pay me  _that_  much, Commissioner. You’re on your own.”

Jim decided to take a leaf from Mayor Gracia. “Internal has been looking for transfers. You did say you’ve been considering being chained to a desk for the foreseeable future?”

The humor left Aly’s eyes. “You wouldn’t.”

Jim attempted to channel Bruce Wayne’s wide eyed innocence “Misery loves company.”  

She fixed him with a long, accessing stare. “You really don’t want to meet Wayne, do you? Why? What’s he done to scare the great big Gordon off, taken a bite at you?

Jim almost choked on his thin, badly filtered, non- double dripped coffee. “I’m not scared!” he scoffed, pulling his collar a little higher up his neck.

“Then at least explain to me why you’re so adamant against giving your long-suffering fellow men the dues they deserve, oh obtuse one.”

“They sent you down didn’t they?”

 Caught out, Aly dropped her act and said flatly. “Just do it, Jim.”

Jim glared at her from the crinkles of sandwich foil. “ _Never._ ”

*


	9. Wayne's World

 

**9**

  
  
The lift doors pinged opened to reveal a wintry-haired butler, his cornflower-blue eyes lively with secret amusement.

“Master Gordon, I presume?”

“Unfortunately,” Jim croaked. “You must be Alfred. We spoke on the phone.”

“A pleasure. Master Wayne is taking a conference call at the moment, but he asked me to place you in the lounge."

“Tell me again why the meeting couldn't take place in a more professional place, instead of his- his..” Jim’s speech stuttered away as Alfred threw the doors opened.

“This  _is_  his office, Commissioner,” the old butler remarked, a smile in his voice. “Master Wayne sleeps in the penthouse in the  _next_  tower; the sky bridge connects the two.”

“Ah.”Jim opened his mouth, shut it, and decided that an embarrassed silence was better than another idle and possibly mistaken remark about things he knew nothing about. Stepping past the building’s public foyer, the space he entered was unmistakably professional, even cold- all black marble, steel and glass.

Declining the hard ultra-modernist sofa that Alfred had shown him to before leaving, Jim wandered restlessly around the huge space, resisting  the urge to zip his jacket up a little tighter against the frigid, isolationist environment he suddenly found himself in. The briefcase of brochures, figure sheets and laptop of the PowerPoint slides that Marketing had insisted he bring along  _just in case_  was burning a hole in his right hand: and although the question at what point in life Jim had made the transition from cop to god-dam travelling salesman was still eluding him, he had the feeling that Bruce Wayne had played no small part in it.

The paintings on the wall alongside the narrow strip of stainless steel balcony caught his eye. The artist was the evidently the same as the one from the library- except these were if anything, more disturbing. In one, the rails of the sky train, the last and grandest legacy of Thomas Wayne, extended across a square canvass like spider legs from the squatting shadows of Wayne Tower in two mirrored ‘W’s. The other painting, also of Wavne Tower, had black tentacle-like roads spreading out from it. Frowning, Jin tilted his head and thought that upside down, the tower and its spreading roads looked like the skeletal wings of a bat with arms extended, about to attack.

Leaving the perturbing art behind, Jim wondered out onto the balcony and stood in pleasure for long moments, his hair buffeted by the wind. He could see the identical tower standing beside it like a vain reflection; the sky bridge connecting the two buildings like a glass umbilical cord. He could almost imagine a mirror version of himself on the opposite side, in the infamous penthouse which entertained so many world class models and celebrities.

Wayne’s world.

Jim grunted at his own curiosity. If anybody had less business wondering about the sort of things that goes on in there, it would be him.

For the first time, the Commissioner wondered what it must be like to be born into a position of such unique privileges, where everything could be accomplished so easily that one could hardly feel any sort of satisfaction. He imagined Wayne standing on this very balcony, dictating into some sort of fancy electronic gadget, and letters and words would fall from his mouth like snowflakes; and upon reaching the ground they turned into buildings, factories, monuments, trains, freight ships reaching every corner of the world. And after awhile Bruce Wayne and WayneTower became one and the same, a relentless production line; a factory.

He leaned out cautiously- taking in the vista below. The cityscape was awe inspiring, undeniably beautiful- and  utterly lonely.

And for the first time as well, Jim wondered if it was possible to feel sorry for the irresponsible, carefree man in the boardroom next door, even if he  _was_  a decadent, insouciant young man with too much time and money on his hands; who probably got drunk and kissed anything that moved – Commissioners included, and then tried to take them home. 

And judging from where Jim was standing now, it looked like the billionaire had gotten his wish in the end. Jim had a feeling that was often the case where Bruce Wayne was concerned.

The Commissioner caught his own reflection on the glossy surface of the building and blanched at the tired, washed-out old man who stared back at him. He snorted, almost laughing at his own ego. To think that he had actually thought that Bruce Wayne of all people was actually interested in him, drunken kiss be dammed.

Vanity? At his age? What next, low-fat yogurt and a gym membership? A call to ask Bruce Wayne if he could borrow one of his Lamborghini for a spin?

Of course Jim had all misunderstood it in his mind.

“Amazing view,” a smooth, masculine voice suddenly said quietly behind him.

“ _Shit_ -” Jim swung around too fast and collided with the solid body who had somehow managed to sneak noiselessly up behind him. With a small laugh, Wayne reached out a steadying arm, and somewhere in the movement Jim felt his heart stopped beating, fall out, and bounce to the edge of the balcony where it hovered dangerously on the precipice.

Then Wayne was placing his palms very firmly on Jim’s chest; hands that were, for all that their buffered and manicured lustre,  _irrefutably_   _masculine_  in gender, and gently pushing him to the wall. Far too quickly,Wayne’s mouth was upon his;  _with tongue_ , and Jim’s heart stopped hovering and decided to jump right off the balcony ledge, taking his equilibrium along with it, like a bungee cord.

A voice in his head, the voice that wasn't connected to his confused loins or his now malfunctioned lung piped up in reminder that he really, really, really was not gay; that in fact at age forty-six, nobody really had a right to be, especially when they had been married half their lives, and presumably straight their whole.

 _Especially_  where playboys half his age were concerned.

Oddly enough, it was Wayne who seemed to have came out of their kiss the worse of wear- lips swollen and hair windblown into an attractive state of dishabille – and Jim told himself the only reason he even  _knew_ how to appreciate things like that were because Barbara liked to leave her magazines all over the house, and Wayne looked like he’d walked off the pages of some fragrance ad. 

“I hope you haven’t waiting long,” his voice, when he finally spoke again, was almost a rasp. Typical Bruce Wayne.  The man must have just woken up from yet another round of late night drinking.

“Must you do that?” Jim grouched as he straightened his tie, summoning as much irritability into his voice as he could. “After all that talk about never doing it again?”

“As I recalled, you were the one doing all the talking,” Wayne smirked. “My mouth was busy with more important things.”

Jim stared speechless as Wayne laughed at his expression. “You’re not going to deck me again, are you?”

“Right now, Mister Wayne, I’m a little more enamoured of pushing you off this balcony.”

“That hurt, you know” Wayne said, wincing as he rubbed his face in reminiscence. “You could have been a little more circumspect.”

“Something not many can accuse you of practicing yourself,” Jim rounded up on him.

“Touché,” Wayne murmured, not sounding at all remorseful.  Let’s adjourn to somewhere more  _relaxed_.”

Jim narrowed his eyes and Wayne threw his hands up, laughing. “Ok, ok, I’ll behave. Shall we?”

“I thought I made it clear that your jokes are not  _half_ funny.”

“What I meant to ask,” Bruce replied as he gazed down at him, gentle amusement radiating from his very pores, “was if we should adjourn to my office.”

Oh, how Jim  _hated_  Bruce Wayne.

*


	10. In which denial ain’t just a river, but a friggin’ deluge

 

10

The fish head stared right back at Jim as he lifted his chopsticks.

“Don’t like Chinese?”

“I love Chinese.” Jim said grumpily _. Chinese takeout, you moron. Chow Mein and sweet sour pork and fortune cookies gone flat served by rude immigrant waiters. Not these half-extinct, found only in the crystal waters of Shangri-la and clay-baked in 300 rarefied spices crap._

“You know the Chinese consider fish heads a delicacy? There are certain species where buying the head of a fish would cost more than the body.”

“How enlightened,” Jim grunted, giving up on the fish and spearing a Bak Choy half heartedly instead.

“My eyes took in some amazing sights in China, but I think it was my taste buds that really did the most exploring-” Wayne droned on oblivious, to Jim’s discomfort, his eyes actually misting over as he talked. The commissioner sighed and sneaked a discrete glance at his watch.

Wayne caught the movement and raised an eyebrow suspiciously. “Did you try the sea slugs?”

“Delicious,” the commissioner lied. Across the table, the decapitated fish head glared accusingly at Jim from its bed of lettuce leaves.

“Excellent, you must have seconds of everything.” Wayne plucked up the empty saucer beside him and deftly begun to peel the skin off some squishy, unidentifiable seafood with his chopsticks.

Jim blanched at the sight. “I really…couldn’t eat anotherbite.”

“The eyeballs are the best,” Wayne had the insouciance to add while Jim contemplated dropping the entire platter in his Armani-clad lap. From the crocked quirk of his lips Wayne’s seemed to be reading his thoughts; chocolate eyes alight with mischief. Even with all his air-headed comments, Bruce Wayne was charming, _disturbingly_ so, and certainly more than anyone that flaky has the right to be, except that Jim no longer knows if he can call him that anymore, because one afternoon in his office, being ruthlessly drilled about GDP’s forecast expenditure right down to the shinny new coffee machines  had left no space for doubt in Jim’s mind that that underneath that jaunty, shallow façade Wayne showed to the world lied great intelligent, and the man was possessed of an uncanny human knowledge and acute business sensibilities far beyond what his father had possessed.

This realization had placed Jim in an awkward place, reluctantly attracted to a playboy half his age and quite unsure who he was more disgusted at: Wayne, for making him the target of his newest games of Catch-the-Commissioner, or himself, or succumbing.  He had been cajoled into having a drink after their meeting, and then staying for dinner, and now Jim found himself stuck in an uneasy camaraderie which was neither here nor there.

The object of his thoughts suddenly caught his eye and winked. Winked!

Then Wayne suddenly felt the need to walk over to his side of the admittedly long dinning table just to deposit his saucer of extreme foods,  and the long,  _long_ , night didn’t seem to be coming to a close anytime soon, but with midnight just around the corner, Jim was beginning to feel distinctly pumkin-ish.

“Did you know that sea slugs are considered a potent aphrodisiac?” Wayne asked, holding out his plate as if it was bait and Wayne was the hunter lying in wait.

“By  _other_  sea slugs?”

“Did you know that fish  _milt_ is used as an aphrodisiac as well? Imagine eating fish spunk every time you want to get-” the man sat down beside him and nattered off again, and Jim thought irritably that Wayne really shouldn’t sound so gleeful when he talked. It made him sound all of five years old. He also realized suddenly that there was now so safe zone in which he could rest his eyes. He couldn’t look at the table, whose visceral contents turned his stomach. He certainly couldn’t look at Wayne’s face and not quaver at the stark, openly predatory expression the man wore. He could barely keep his eyes from straying to the tanned forearms that the man was wantonly displaying. And Wayne was sitting much too close- Jim might not be the most experienced old man on the block, but he wasn’t stupid to the signs – and the signs were very bad.

There was no two ways about it – he simply had to get out of here.

 “I have to get out of here,” Jim said to the fish as he stood up. It’s glazed, accusing look did not abate.

Wayne stilled, laid down his chopsticks, and raised himself- and a sharp eyebrow at Jim. “Why? The night is still young.”

 _I’m the one who’s old, you deliberately obtuse puppy-eyed  poppycock._ Jim shrugged instead _._ “Its late.”

“At least have a drink before you go- I have an entire cellar at our disposal-”

“I’m not one for the drink,” Jim told him, sounding prim even to his own ears , and winced internally. He was therefore surprised to see the unmistakable look of relief that crossed Wayne’s features.

“Stay for some coffee, at least. Coffees.”

“Wayne, I really can’t-“ Jim trailed off. “Coffees?”

“Coffees.” Wayne said firmly.

 “As in coffee, but more than one bean?”

Wayne’s smile took on that distinctly shark-like quality again.  “More than one coffee berry, yes. And Jim?”

“Um.”

“I have more than one coffee machine.”

*


	11. Waynity, my favourite sin

 

11

There’s something about the noise a coffee machine makes that never failed to remind Jim of his boyhood, earning ten dollars a day flipping burgers at Macs. They’d given him all the free soda he wanted, but Jim had soon been bored with the blatant cascade of fountain drinks; their one-dimensional taste of sugar and gas, sugar and gas.

But coffee. Coffee had  _layers._  No matter how many cups of coffee Jim had, and by now he’d had ten thousand, there was always something new about the way that first sip caressed his palate like a lover both new and familiar, mellowed and sharp. Layers bitter and sweet, honeyed and biting. And then there was the kick he got just from getting to pull the shinny lever, listen to the whir and its accompanying  _whoosh_ , the thin stream of milky liquid pouring hot and promising, and oh, how Jim wished he had the guts then, to put his head under the sprout and  _drink_  from it.

Yes, coffee. Coffee had been there for Jim. It’d been there every day of his life: extra large lattes he shyly shared with his bird on a first date, long blacks to dip his donut into for cold patrol nights. Affrogatos for  melancholic days, gazing out coffee shop windows pondering Gotham’s  latest problems while his ice cream melted and separated  like double layered pudding.

The twelve shots of espresso he took one after the other, like painkillers, the day he found Babara’s divorce papers in the mail. 

And now, coffee with Wayne, who had his own espresso bar on the mezzanine above his office.

Coffee with Wayne, watching him lick the foam off his cup.

The billionaire must have been very, very bored indeed to condescend to something like this, Jim decided.

I’m staying because of the  _whoosh_ , Jim told himself firmly. Nothing else. Depressingly, even his snide internal voice didn’t believe it, which meant Wayne was definitely going to see through it as well. The dark promise in his eyes said as much; the only part that Jim couldn’t understand was why the billionaire seemed contented to go though the whole song and dance to get him into bed when he already had the planet’s most beautiful  people at his back and call. Slumming? Charity? A bet with friends? Sheer boredom?

 ‘Would you like another cup of that?’

Jim shook his head. ‘One more cup and I’ll have to arrest myself for drunk driving.’

‘You could always spend the night here, you know,’ Wayne suggested impishly. ‘I have plenty of room.’

Jim scowled at him, and the younger man spread his hands innocently. ‘What’d I say?’

‘You  _know_  what you said,’ Jim snapped, putting his mug down with more force than was necessary as he rose from his seat.

But Wayne was like an exuberant puppy who’d just found a new game and was latching on to all his worth as he followed the Commisioner around the bar. ‘It’d make perfect sense for you to stay the night, Jim. After all, Wayne Tower is well equipped to offer precisely these a small conveniences. And Alfred can bring your clothes over. Or a stuffed teddy bear, if you like,’

The sound Jim made in reply sounded almost like a growl, and only made Wayne’s Cheshire smile even wider _._

‘It’s a serious offer, you know,’ the dark-haired man inched closer, his voice honeyed. Instead of replying, Jim glared into the foamy dredged of his cup. It didn’t supply any clever quips for Jim to fence Wayne off with. 

‘ _Why_  are you doing this?’ he bit off at last, feeling cornered and bewildered beyond belief. ‘Is baiting old cops the new pastime of the rich and famous?’

 ‘You’re far from old,’ Wayne frowned, and to Jim’s utter horror, moved even closer. There was no mistaking the narrowing intention in those eyes.

Jim took a step back, his eyes wide. ‘What do you  _think_  you’re doing?’

And then he felt Wayne’s lips ghost over his gently, almost chastely, withdrawing with a small smile.

‘I’m sorry. Does that make you uncomfortable?’

 “You  _think?_ ”

“I think the commissioner doth protest too much. I’ll take it slow if you like.”

“You’ll take it  _nowhere_ ,” Jim said belligerently.  _Move_ , said the voice in his head.  _Run now._

Wayne pulled him closer, anchoring a hand firmly on Jim’s back to arrest his escape.  “Running away doesn’t become you, Jim.”

‘I’m not-‘ Jim broke off, took a deep breath, and tried again. ‘I don’t do this. I’m not even  _gay_.’

‘Excellent. Neither am I.’

‘Dammit Wayne, what the hell do you  _want?_ ’

“Oh  _Jim._ ” The way Wayne said his name was like a penance. “Jim.  _Jim_. You have no idea-” he broke off, and the small smile that was on Bruce Wayne’s face was suddenly the gravest expression he’d ever seen a man who’d just kissed somebody wear, and it made Jim sad for some reason; sad and impulsive, because he suddenly found himself cupping Wayne’s cheek, which wasn’t soft or yielding but somehow like touching the face of a pagan god- powerful, beautiful, flawed beings who watched the normality of thee average man with envy. 

‘Please.  _Please_.’

Jim heard the strain in that voice, saw the tautness of the veins on Wayne’s hammering throat. The air or Wayne's breath -he could no longer tell which-  felt fluid and warm against Jim's skin as he heard himself say ‘ok’ in a voice so weak he couldn’t imagine himself saying it; in fact he closes his eyes to deny it-

‘ _Thank you, Jim,_ ' Wayne whispers, in a voice that has just come out for air.  
  
That was, Jim thought, the strangest two words he’d heard from the billionaire thus far in their bizarre and somewhat manipulative acquaintance.  _Thank you_ , and he’s thinks he’s done it, crossed the line of no return, crumpled up all that unshakable faith which he’d lived to this ripe of age with and threw it into the bin like so much rubbish.

Surely, surely it must be stress of the divorce.

_Thank you._

Bruce Wayne picked up his hand, molds his face into it as if his skin was memorizing the shape of Jim’s hand, and then tugs gently and leads him to the sky bridge and its holy-cow-futuristic bio-sensomatic sliding doors like a portal to an unknown dimension, and Jim  _knows_  this is the point of no return.

*


	12. Man bits

  
12

Jim sat on the edge of a surprisingly firm mattress, watching the ripple of youthful flesh move under Wayne’s dress shirt as he prowled around his penthouse bedroom, and wondered how it came to this

‘I’ll only be a minute,’ Wayne says to him with his backed turned, and out of politeness, Jim makes a non-committal noise.

‘Would you like to switch on the tube?’

‘No.’

‘Hmm. Would you like a drink?’

‘No.’

‘Oh.’ A pause, and then Wayne is poking his head from the bathroom, his expression devilish. ‘Would you like a massage to help you relax?’

Jim opened his mouth, feels the air evaporating from his tongue, and shuts it again. He shook his head, rather more vigorously than necessary.

‘You’re really missing something, because I give a mean massage-‘ the chocolate head disappeared again.

Jim cleared his throat, attempting to finally expel the long speech he’d been composing in fits and starts about it being a terrible mistake. ‘Mister Wayne, I really think that yo-‘

‘Bruce!’ yelled the disembodied voice from the bathroom.

Jim jumped, heart speeding up, and forced himself to settle down and tackle the matter in his usual direct way.

‘Mister Wayne, I need to tell you-‘

‘Then tell Bruce,’ the smirking man said as he walked out again, toweling his face. ‘Not Mister Wayne.’

‘Br-uce,’ Jim said in a horrifyingly tiny voice, and almost clamped his hand into his mouth to prevent another squeak from escaping.

A long pause followed where Wayne’s mouth twisted in a comical look of concentration. ‘Did you just say something?’

‘I said Bruce.’

'If you want me to call you Commisioner Gordon in bed; I really don’t mind accommodating… if you have that sort of kink-’

‘BRUCE!’ Jim all but shouted the name, so determined was he to say it for the very last time.

‘Excellent. Maybe several octaves softer the next time,’ Wayne smiled as he shrugged out of his shirt, and Jim puts his head in his hands in a bid to suppress his brain’s sudden babbling that Wayne was malemalemalemalemale.

What was he doing here? Why was he sitting here, a forty year old cop on a bed that had seen most of Hollywood’s most expensive cosmetically-enhanced women, yes WOMEN, wh-

‘You’re not very curious, are you?’ Wayne mused as he slapped something on himself- aftershave, most probably. ‘Most people enjoy poking around.’

Most people, the dry voice in Jim’s head informs him, being Wayne-speak for models, film stars, assorted hanger-ons in six inch heels, and fellow hotel-chain owning heiresses.

‘I’m… selectively curious,’ Jim said feebly. ‘About emergency exits, for example.’

To his incredulity, Wayne’s worried eyes actually strayed to the door, like he trying to gauge if his captive was going to make a run for it. Jim tried hard for irritated, but all he got was embarrassed, and maybe slightly flattered if he was truly honest with himself. The only problem was he didn’t want to sleep with Wayne. He wasn’t even gay.

Except that Wayne was admittedly a paragon of physical manhood. Male-hood. Not manhood. Male- Oh for Christ sake man bits does not turn Jim on!

Man bits were coming closer, his brain gibbered at him as the younger man approached the bed and hovered above him, about to- do something they both would surely regret.

‘Do you mind-‘ Jim all but shrieked, sputum flying. As Wayne’s eyes begun to narrow, he feebly tacked on ‘- if we just…er, talked?’

‘Relax, Jim.’

I’m being robbed by the cradle. Jim gave a bark, the rest of his hysterical laugh swallowed.

‘This… tumble in the hay, might end up costing you far more than you think-‘

Wayne pushed him down on to his elbows and actually laughed, and Jim decided quite firmly that no, the man in fact did not possess many redeeming features.

‘Oh, I do think the bill will be within my range of affordability. Barely.”

Jim struck out desperately. “Haven’t you a reputation to keep up?”

‘I prefer to keep them guessing,”

Trapped by the cage of tanned, muscular arms around him, Jim started scrambling backwards on the bed. ‘I’m sure the newspapers would prefer somebody more photogenic.”

‘I’m photogenic enough for the both of us.”

‘Gah!”

Wayne grinned on top of him. “Run out of objections already? Excellent, lets begin.”

‘Wait!”

‘Close your eyes and think of Gotham,” Wayne advised solicitously. “Though frankly, I prefer Tokyo.”

‘This- madness-‘ Jim spluttered as he continued his backward scramble towards the headboards. He suddenly found his spectacles snatched away, and barely refrained from screaming like a girl. ‘Stop!’

Wayne’s head was descending again, and the faint pressure of being chest to chest made Jim want to black out. He screwed his eyes shut and pushed his head as far back as he could, flinching at every sensation. Uncountable seconds passed as he waited for unspeakable horrors to sweep him away.

‘Jim...’

One tightly squeezed eyed opened and blinked owlishly. ‘What?’

‘You’re backed up- ‘ Wayne’s whispered sadly, ‘ -into the headboard.’

‘I see.’ Jim licked his suddenly dry lips. Tried not to breathe hard. Tried not to breathe at all, seeing as each inhalation brought their bodies tighter together.

‘Those quips probably didn’t help either, did it?’ Wayne begun to draw slowly away. ‘I’m sorry, I think I was just as nervous as you are.’

‘Sorry,’ Jim mumbled and pulled himself up, although he did not think he should be the sorry one.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ the younger man told him. But his smile was tight, and did not reach his eyes. ‘Drink?’

‘No, thanks. I should-‘ Jim closed his eyes, wondering why he felt so naked when he hadn’t removed a stitch, while Wayne lounged around in his naked torso with all the in-consequence of a newborn babe. ‘I should get going.’

‘Hmmm,’ Wayne was gazing out onto Gotham, idly swirling a drink in one hand. His face was shuttered; Jim had been dismissed.

The walk towards the lift somehow felt sordid and wrong. His ever step was weighted, the door too far and too near. Jim mourned something, if only he could tell what. Surely it was not what he thought it was. Surely he didn't have any more innocence to lose.

Burning with embarrassment and an odd sense of loss, he watched the lift doors shut on the image of Bruce Wayne pointedly ignoring him. The drive back was surreal, the real world insubstantial.

Jim concentrated hard on his hands: tight on the wheel, tight on the road, and did his best to ignore his throat- tight with inexplicable grief, tight with unshed tears.

*


	13. E tu, Alfred?

 

13

The answering machine beeped again— twice, and settled into a sullen red flickering that looked almost resigned.

Bruce ignored it all- the annoyed beeps, the breakfast gone cold, the Rolex that informed him that his Board of Directors were probably hedging their bets against his third consecutive no-show in a week, and Alfred’s none too subtle knocking on the door.

Finally the doors opened with the distinct click that his butler’s skeleton key always made, and Alfred’s dryly disapproving voice floated through.

‘The master seems to be  _quite_ in thrall of his vigilante duties these few days. Have the criminal masterminds taken to rising early of late?’ 

‘I’m  _indisposed_ , Alfred.’

‘Is that  _so_ , my lord?’ His long time butler raised one eloquent eyebrow.

 ‘I’m feeling a little under the weather today.’ Bruce affected feebly. 

 ‘As are your acting skills,’ his butler purred, and Bruce flinched. Hollywood’s cattiest commentators had  _nothing_ on Alfred’s dripping nuances.

‘Go ‘way and let me sulk in peace.’

Alfred waged a gloved finger. ‘You cannot hide in the Batcave forever, Master Wayne, just because your date with the Commissioner did not go well.’

_Watch me._

‘I wasn’t hiding, I was just… appraising,’ Bruce blustered. ‘And it wasn’t a  _date_.’

‘No, sir it most certainly was not a date.’ Alfred agreed soberly.

‘I’m glad you agree.’

‘Indeed. I do believe  _forced sexual assault_  would be a better term to describe it.’

Bruce blinked, but the world did not return to normal. ‘I  _beg_  your pardon?’

‘Violation, defilement, or the intention to defile without  _concise_  mutual consent,’ Alfred elaborated succinctly as he ticked off his fingers. ‘I do believe what you did would actually constitute rape in most countries, sir.’

Bruce felt his mouth drop open. The emergency line rang.

‘ _What now?!’_  he grated into the phone. Bruce swore the entire world conspired against him today.

‘I thought I  _told_ you that I wanted him back in  _one_  piece.’

 ‘I didn’t  _do_  anything to him, Anthony,’

‘I send my  _best_  guy over to your place for one evening-  _one_ evening Bruce, and get him back in  _pieces_ ,’ the Mayor’s voice begun to climb, octave by ear-wincing octave. ‘He hasn’t been able to string two sentences together since Tuesday! What have you _done_  to my Commissioner, Bruce?’

‘I didn’t-‘

‘Did you know that Jim Gordon is the only  _legit_  public face of crime fighting we have in Gotham? That he’s also the only one in GPD with a direct line to Batman? And you have turned him into a gibbering idiot. So help me, Wayne, if I find my ratings going down by one sixth of a percent, I will personally  _come_  down there and  _bust_  your ass.’

The phone slammed down on his well-wrung ears.

Truly bewildered now, Bruce simply gaped at his white-haired mentor. ‘I don’t understand. Why is everybody blaming  _me_ -‘

The look his butler gave him could have withered carbon-fibered flowers. ‘My lord had taken quite a few falls on his head during the course of his illustrious career, but surely his skull could not be quite that thick.’

‘But I backed away- and gave Jim his space-‘

‘ _After_  the damage was done. Did you even take the time to reassure him of y-‘

‘HIM?  _I_ was the one who got rejected!’

‘Jim Gordon did  _not_  know there was a proposition to begin with. Therefore, how could he reject you? You haven’t asked the question.’

‘Alfred, a blind man would have discerned my intentions.’

‘Perhaps, perhaps. But you don’t want a blind man, Master Wayne. You want a straight man, who has  _never_ looked at another member of his sex in his entire life, who is divorced because he was too  _clueless_  to see the signs of unrest in his own marriage, who is famous; in fact  _as_ famous as Batman for his tunnel vision and total  devotion to Gotham City-‘

‘I get your point,’ Bruce interrupted.

‘Basically your behavior displayed the kind of unmitigated assholery that a playboy of your lesser stature would blush to own up to. ’

Bruce opened his mouth to hotly refute that. ‘What do mean I… ‘ His face suddenly crumpled. ‘I screwed up, didn’t I?’

‘Royally,’ his butler smirked.

Bruce scowled. ‘If you’re incapable of showing me any sympathy then at least show some respect.’

‘You royally screwed up  _sir_.’

With a half sob, Bruce buried his head in his hands. ‘What am I going to do?’

‘Why, beg for forgiveness, of course. On bended knees if necessary, in the great tradition of all stupidly over demonstrative but well-meaning lovers.’

‘Oh Alfred. I don’t think he’s even gay to begin with.’

‘Then I guess you shouldn’t bring any pink flowers when you go out and beg for forgiveness.  Sir.’

*

Bruce faltered at the door, fighting his own uneasy reactions, and rang the doorbell before his courage deserted him. Opposite the street, a crowd of teenagers was beginning to gather around his car. Bruce winced over the multiplying chorus of ‘Ferrari’ and ‘awesome’, and wished he had taken the motorcycle instead.  

The door clicked opened, and Jim Gordon’s rather tousled head poked out. He looked-

He wore stripped pyjamas. He looked  _adorable._  

 _Severely_  conspiring universe with capital ‘C’.

‘Mister Wayne,’ there was a hopeless sort of note in the commissioner’s voice. ‘I wish I could say I was surprised.’

‘Sorry to barge in on your only day off.’ Bruce flustered. ‘I was- I’m here to-’

Bruce blanked out. He was in the neighbourhood. He wanted Gordon’s opinion on buying up a chain of coffee shops. He thought the front porch could use some colour- such as the permanent presence of some Ferrari red. He could really use a hug.      

Oh,  _help._

Jim sighed at him and turned back into the house. ‘I supposed there’s no getting rid of you, so you might as well come in.’

Bruce gratefully followed his retreating footsteps into the living room, where he took in his new surroundings with a sinking heart. What must once have been a cosy family home was now bare and cast in shadows. A desolate air seemed to permead its very walls, dotted with dusky grey squares where family photos and loved paintings onced hung.

It was a space that lamented the fact it was no longer a home. And the bareness of the place seemed to make the space feel claustrophobic instead. Most of the few remaining furniture had been wrapped up, ready to be shipped. The few remaining frames were empty, and Bruce caught sight of stuffed bunny, flat with age, discarded on the floorboards at the eleventh hour.

Beside him, Jim shuffled awkwardly, as if he hadn’t noticed the state of his home until a stranger had stepped through it.

‘We thought it was appropriate for the kids to have as much similarity as possible to the original home,’ he explained. But there was more sorrow than defensiveness in that tone.

‘Of course,’ the younger man croaked.

‘You wanted to talk to me about something. Go ahead.’ Jim parked himself on the arm of his bubble wrapped sofa, his fingers unconsciously curling around the furniture as it was making its own wistful goodbyes.

Bruce nodded dumbly as he sat on the glad-wrapped armchair, but how could he speak past the lump in his throat? He had been a fool. A selfish, banal animal with no instincts for consideration or compassion save his own driving libido. He wished he had the foresight to bring a present; nothing as frivolous as flowers, but a bottle of wine perhaps, or chinese take out; perhaps a puppy to keep Jim company.

He wished he had brought a god-dammed script so he at least knew what to say.

‘I wanted to apologise. For Monday night.’ He spread his hands helplessly on his lap, staring at his own fingers. ‘I should have said that earlier of course. I should have- called.’ 

‘You came all this way out here to tell me this?’ Jim looked vaguely stunned. ‘First of all, I’m not one of your floozies.’

‘I know th-’

‘Second of all, Monday night was clearly a mistake.’

 _That_ took all the wind out of Bruce’s sails.

‘Thirdly, I clearly have some hidden...  _issues_ , that I need to address- that’s what the leave of absence is for.’ The commissioner’s gaze was solemn, direct. ‘You’re a very attractive man, Wayne, but I’m  _not_  gay.’

*


	14. Chapter 14

 

14

Jim couldn’t believe that Wayne was still here, Armani-clad figure perched on bubble wrapped chair with his lands on his lap and a disturbingly earnest look on his face.

 ‘Mister Wayne, exactly  _which_  part of ‘not gay’ do you need clarification on?’ he asked, and watched with no small amount of disbelief as Wayne actually pursed his mouth to consider the question.

 ‘The part where you kiss me back,’ Wayne finally told him, with those melted chocolate eyes, in that husky chocolate voice.

Jim blinked, and sat down on the bubble wrap, taking several moments to find a comfortable spot while he stalled for time. ‘I didn’t ki- I didn’t do anything back.’

 ‘Is that so? Well, how about the part where you consented to be lead into by  _bedroom_ , Jim?’ The younger man raised one devilish eyebrow. ‘Could it actually be pretext for an investigation, hmm? How very suave of you, if so. Practically Bond-like.’

There it was again, the sense of something no quite truthful about Bruce Wayne. Jim had a nose for sniffing out pretence, but he’d never met somebody with as many mixed signals as Wayne. There had  _always_ been something about the man that raised Jim’s hackles, made him certain that he was being treated to a very elaborate sideshow.

Yet here in front of him was a painful, almost desperate honesty in Wayne’s face, something that Jim suspected the younger man was unaware he sometimes radiated.

Jim dug around in his brain and concluded that his most dominant thought about Bruce Wayne was that he was both thoroughly irritating and strangely endearing. Behind that came the frustrating realization that whenever Wayne -and lately this had included the mere _thought_  of the man – came into proximity, Jim’s heart would speed up and knock about in a way almost identical to the time he first kissed Barbara.  Which meant, in an figurative world where  _X plus Y equals Z,_ Jim was  _figuratively_  just as attracted to Bruce as he had been Barbara.

And exactly what the  _hell_ was he supposed to do with that fact?

Even if he admitted this reluctant... curiosity, what was the point? He had no time for the likes of Bruce Wayne, no time to baby sit bored billionaires while they explored hitter-unknown sexual kinks for older men; no time to accompany them to fund-raisers. They had nothing in common. Jim was a cop and a commoner, and more importantly, he _liked_  being common.  And he had no chance of ‘common’ where Bruce Wayne was concerned.

Wayne was his own Midas whether he liked it or not; right now, Jim’s quiet neighbourhood was probably swarming with reporters, and Jim’s old, bubble-wrapped sofa, the threadbare arm of which the prince of Gotham has now graced his backside on; could probably start a new life as a museum mouthpiece.

Jim decided the best course was to convince them   _both_  of the impossibility of the situation.

‘I’m. Not. Gay.’    

‘I know,’ Wayne replied, suddenly miserable again. ‘Neither am I.’

A pause hung in the air between them, almost like a question.

Jim cleared his throat. ‘What do you want from me then?’

‘For you to call me Bruce.’

The older man snorted. ‘If I thought it’d be that easy-’

‘You keep asking me what I want, and I keep thinking I’ve been obvious about it. You’re  _beautiful_ , Jim.’ Bruce smiled crookedly at Jim’s goggle-eyed expression, and continued with a wistfulness that was almost  _painful_  to see. ‘I know you don’t believe me, but it’s the truest thing I’ve ever said. I can’t help wanting to get close to you. I’ve been...  _wanting_  to get close to you for a very long time.’

‘You’ve always been a man who knows exactly what he wants.’ Jim rubbed at his spectacles. ‘Thing is, you’re also exactly the sort who wants what he can’t get.’

Bruce didn’t open his mouth for so long that Jim thought he’d been grievously offended by that last quip.

Then abruptly: ‘You’re one leave, aren’t you? For how long?’

‘Five days. Longest leave of absence I ever took.’ Then, at Bruce’s sceptical expression, he bit out ‘Oh, all right! Longest leave that the mayor has ever imposed on me to date. That man’s a menace.’

‘Three afternoons,’ the man said this decisively, his eyes glittering with a sudden fervour that made Jim suddenly afraid.

‘Meaning?’

‘Give me three afternoons to convince you.’

‘Mister Wayne, this is  _not_ a negotiation session.’

‘What have you got to lose? Wouldn’t you always wonder?  _Jim-’_  Bruce suddenly pitched to his knees on the floor and caught the commissioner’s surprised hands in his own. ‘Give us both a chance to find out for sure, and I promise you, I will never bother you again. Give me three days. If I can convince you-‘

‘If you think its going to take you three days to convince me that the last twenty years of my life with Barbara was a mistake,’ Jim almost shouted to mask his panic, ‘you’re a piece of, hmp-‘

He couldn’t finish, because Bruce-  _Wayne_ , had kissed him again, and Jim’s mind tapered off incoherently and then stayed very silent.

For a very long time.

Too long.

Finally it was Wayne who drew away first with a delighted grin, much to Jim’s extreme chagrin.

‘Three days, Jim,’ he repeated firmly as he let himself through the door, and the threat implicit in his voice squashed whatever small fantasy Jim had of skipping town the next few days.

The older man didn’t know how long he sat there, staring off aimlessly into space until the doorbell jarred him badly. Chocolate-eyed billionaires were such a bloody menaces.

The blistering speech he had composed to tell Wayne to go to hell died in on his lips when the door opened to reveal a pizza boy, 8 large thin-crusts, and a note telling Jim not to be mad, he just didn’t know what favour Jim liked and it didn’t look like there was a lot of food in the house.  
  
He quaked to think about what other extravagances the next three days would bring.

*


	15. Chapter 15

 

14

‘Ah, Bruce.’

‘Yes Jim?’

‘You probably know that I wouldn’t have agreed to be driving this far out of the city, had I known.’

‘Yes Jim,’ Bruce smiled into his computerised dashboard. ‘And that’s why you didn’t know.’

‘And- are you going to tell me where we’re going now?’

‘No, Jim.’

‘I see.’

‘Although I could drive really fast – to distract you.’

‘Then I’ll have to pull you over –to arrest you.’

Bruce grinned even more. ‘I wished you would.’

Muttering, Jim trained his eyes to blurring trees to hide his blush. ‘Surprise, surprise.’

A brief silence, and Bruce’s voice was hesitant. ‘You know what’s really surprising? The fact you even agreed to this.’

‘ _Did_  I?’

‘Enough to get into the car, at least. That’s still something. Is that a new jacket?’

 _‘No.’_  Jim pulled the collar of his new jacket higher.

‘I’m really glad you’re here, Jim.’

Jim stared at the hand that had suddenly found itself on his knee. ‘I am not going to  _hold_  your hand, Bruce.’ 

‘Sorry.’

The drive continued in silence for several minutes, a companionable lull stretching vast around them, like the overhead sky. Jim cleared his throat, yawned, and scratched his chin, in that order. The he leaned his head against the window pane to marvel at the singular sight of Bruce being able to keep his amorous thought to himself.

They drove clean out of town, past the Palisades, and into the outer edges of a canopied forest, where the car suddenly came to a halt. Jim got out of the car, shading his eyes against the glare of the sun- it had been too long since he experienced sun that wasn’t streaming through an office window. 

‘It gets cooler under the trees,’ Bruce said as he picked up a backpack the size of body bag, which Jim eyed with trepidation.

‘You need help with that?’

‘Just try to keep up, ok?’ Bruce grinned as he walked off the road and into the trees. He immediately set a punishing pace that Jim had to scramble to keep up with.

‘Where’s the fire?’

He could tell by the look in Bruce’s face that his original answer had been a pervy one, clubbed to death and replaced with something that wouldn’t get him into too much trouble.

‘Oh, this was just to wind you up so you don’t ask too many questions,’ he said nonchalantly. ‘We’re only a few minutes away. And Jim?’

‘What?’

Bruce unceremoniously dropped his bag. ‘I’m going to kiss you now. Don’t run away.’

Jim took a step back, suddenly conscious of his dry lips, and licked at them in a self-conscious motion. Just before his vision was blotted out, he actually saw the chocolate eyes flutter close with something akin to pain. Bruce’s tongue is dry and tentative against his mouth, asking for permission, which Jim thought was much worse, because then it forces him into the role of an acquiescing party in this – whatever  _this_  was.

He figured his brains must have gotten left at the office when he went on leave as well, because after that Bruce held out his hand, which Jim took, all bemused,  and then allowed himself to be lead, like a docile lamb, through the remaining short  hike. They came upon a clearing in the woods to a bubbling river bank, where Bruce made camp and Jim watched him, dazed by the movement of his tanned, competent hands and the fluid economy of his every action.   

‘So what do you think?’

Jim looked around.  ‘It’s good.  _Nobody_  would find my body here.’

Bruce chuckled. ‘Oh, the possibilities.’

‘And that’s why I brought a gun.’

Bruce stopped his fastidious unpacking and looked up with a worried expression. ‘You know. I’m never sure if you’re serious when you make these remarks.’

‘Coming from  _you_ , that’s rich.’

‘Touché,’ Bruce said dryly as he held up a rod. ‘Up for fishing?’  
  
 _'Always_.'

*

All in all, it had been a  _disturbingly_  good day.

Jim had been afraid of waking up to billboards and parades, to flashy gifts and French menus. Instead he was now seated on one of those foldable directors chair – and frankly, Jim had wanted to sit in one as long as he could remember – and they were going through the sizable pile of fish that Bruce had grilled earlier.

When quizzed about his suspicious competency at cleaning fish; something that Jim had never developed the stomach for, Bruce had simply smiled at him and said that his father used to fish.

‘Your father was a good man.’

‘He was.’ Bruce face was bleak, almost grim. ‘Being good didn't save him from being  _dead_ , though ‘

‘He-’

‘And he’s not the only one. So many of the good people, dead. They’re out there, Jim. And they need protection. That’s why the work you do is so important.’

Jim had been struck speechless by that remark, so he hadn’t said anything. There was a strange sort of suffering in Bruce Wayne’s face, some barely imperceptible mask he had dropped between their last meeting and today. Something restless and unknowable, long held in check; but as Jim shared his gaze he observed the gradual softening of the younger man’s features into wistfulness, and wondered what sort of instinctive expression had been on his own face.

Then Bruce had reached over and traced the shape of Jim’s lips with his fingers, caressing the clef of his upper lip, and murmuring almost absently, ‘It really is a good look on you.’ And just as absently Jim had reached out and touched his hair, and Bruce’s eyes had closed and his mouth exhaled, his fingers splaying out on Jim’s mouth and Jim suddenly  _knows_ , knows with the weight of unbearable sadness that nobody has touched Bruce Wayne in a long, long time, and he was holding on to the loneliest man in Gotham.

*

 


	16. Chapter 16

 

16

There used to be a time when Jim though he would grow up to be somebody who knew what he was doing.

If so, he’s still waiting to grow up, because he finds himself on his knees in a tent, currently being undressed by Bruce  _Wayne_  of all people. The look on Wayne’s face is surreal, like he can’t believe himself, and Jim couldn’t bring himself to watch this, because it was slightly pathetic and bloody embarrassing, knowing that  _Jim_ himself invoked such a look, knowing it was probably echoed on his own face.

Jim shivered, and hugged his bare arms a little tighter to himself. When Wayne unfastened the buckle of his belt Jim let him, because he can see the other man’s fingers shaking. When Bruce touched him through his trousers it is also Bruce that gasped first, although Jim is close behind. His mouth is reverent, even when it dragged itself downward and replaced his fingers, and Jim was unable to watch nor speak; he was not even sure he was conscious.

Instead he squeezed his eyes closed and their opened mouths met again and again, soft noises swallowed by the sounds of the forest; Wayne swallowing the tremors and cries when he comes.  As he is washing the sticky residual in the stream later Jim thought that it was ingenious, taking him into a forest, out of comfort zone and established behaviour patterns, out of self-conscious paranoia and good old-fashioned prejudices. Away from anything that could remind you that this was a bad idea. Smart and slightly sneaky, that was Bruce Wayne all over, at least the side he was slowly getting to know. 

After that the tent was filled with a strange, delicate silence, as if they were both sitting in a shallow pool of shared regrets and wondering whether to wallow in it or get up, shake themselves and walk away, embarrassed.

Jim didn’t want regret to be their only connection, so he places a tentative hand on Wayne’s unfortunately masculine chest, and the other one under his head. After listening to the heartbeat beneath him speed up and slow down in an enviable display of physical recovery, the body beside him shifts around to accommodate his, one arm wrapping around his shoulders; a warm hand coaxed his chilly fingers into an embrace.

There is no talk, and Jim stares at the seams of the tent for support. If that flimsy material can hold all this in, the sheer magnitude of what they had done – in, and keep it secret, so can he.

He should focus on the breathing, that’s what all the stress articles that periodically turned up in his inbox always advised. Jim takes a deep breath, and his finds his ribcage suddenly restricted by the arm that Wayne has thrown over it.    

You’d think a gazillionaire could afford to buy something a little more spacious.

*

He’d survived the first day by the skin of his throat, but now Jim wasn’t sure he liked the odds of the second.

Half the morning was gone, and Jim had given the younger man half a dozen open invitations to take a jab at him, them, or the ridiculous circumstances they found themselves in. By half ten, he’d resorted to bad puns. By half eleven, when Wayne still hadn’t said anything remotely flirtatious to him, Jim had begun to wonder if it all hadn’t been some elaborate prank. This contentment to let the silence stretch between them instead of nattering ten to the hour or flirting outrageously... well, it was just  _wrong_ , coming from a man like him.

That, and the fact that he’d woken up to find his phone missing from his trousers pocket. Jim had never been incommunicado from the district before, and it made him feel naked & disconnected.

‘Give me my phone back,’ he groused for the umpteenth time that morning.

‘When I drop you back at your front door the following evening, certainly,’ Bruce repeated in that irritatingly sedate voice he had acquired this morning, seemingly for the sole purpose of  irritating the bejabbers out of Jim.

‘I distinctly remembered saying three afternoons,’ Jim informed him archly, ‘not three days.’

‘I thought I’d save some petrol. Surely even you can’t object to protecting scarce resources..’

‘There are people out there looking for me,’ Jim blustered. ‘Cops, with  _radios_. With  _guns_.’ All he got was an arched eyebrow. Jim gave him his best scowl.   

Finally a vestige of that impudent grin showed itself. ‘I took a calculated chance. Knowing your modesty, I’m sure you wouldn’t have told anybody about your little outing.’

‘You mean  _kid_ napping.’

‘Do tell.’ Dark eyebrows waggled suggestively. ‘And here I thought I was the only kid around.’

Jim gave him a glare.

‘I’m kidding!’

Jim stalked off, then become slightly miffed that he wasn’t followed, and after that rather depressed about the fact he had actually been miffed at all.

*

If anything, the afternoon became even more surreal, when Bruce suddenly disappeared.

‘Not funny,’ Jim yelled for the seventh time, hugging his jacket a little closer to himself. ‘If this is your idea of a joke-‘

It was even less funny at eight, with no dinner, no cellphone, and no Wayne. By then Jim had vacillated several times between irritation, amusement, worry, and sheer boredom... and now hunger was coming into the equation, and a hungry Jim was not a happy Jim at all.  
  
*


	17. The Whole Objective of this Chapter is to Piss and Alienate Readers with almost-Shmexx

 

Amidst the darkened, shifting canvass of the tent the surreal, breathless reality of what was happening to him made Jim feel like he had woken up with two identities – participant and observer. He trashed, helpless against the mouth that dragged down his torso in agonizingly slow, meandering circles; pausing to ghost hot breath over Jim’s oversensitive nipples before sharply nipping.

He had awoken to this – an aching groin, alert long before his mind has shaken off the sands of sleep; a solid cover above him that wasn’t the blanket he’d pulled over himself; a voiceless, slithering thing rubbing sinuously against him... a sense of being completely surrounded,  _engulfed;_  by chilled blue lips and red hot tongue,  _oh god_ , a baptism of ice and fire.

Heat in his veins. Cold pale fear.         

A tiger in the tent.

He was not sure if he surrendered more from sleepiness, desire or very real fear – but surrender Jim did, and gave himself completely up to the ministrations of the...  _thing_  in the tent with him. Even hungry and sleep deprived, he was cognizant that the thing trashing above him was no man, but some sort of desperate, unholy beast; the speed in which he found his clothes divested was surely inhuman.

The...  _thing_  lapped at his hipbone, and anxiously he yanked at the chocolate locks his fingers had been digging into. The hot mouth moved; flew up with such rapid reflexes and latched on his right nipple with a suction which violence practically lifted Jim off the ground.

Angry at last and holding Wayne’s face in a grip more suited to hauling raging criminals than zealous lovers, Jim yanked relentlessly until their eyes met.

‘Bruce.’

The young man refused to meet his eyes, and Jim had to tighten his grip on the chocolate hair when he tried to crawl south again. It took  _all_  the strength in his arms to pull the man up again – and mentally he filled away the knowledge that Bruce Wayne either had great capacity for pain, or enjoyed it.

‘ _Bruce.’_  Jim made sure he repeated the name with a hint of steel this time.

Hot chocolate eyes met his, petulant and aggrieved _. ‘What?’_

Jim cast around for anger, indignation, some form of outrage for him to ride his reprimand on. Instead he felt pity as he looked into Wayne’s dilating pupils; defensive, wretched, and furious with want; as if he wanted unwillingly.

And underneath it all, a desperation for affection that bordered on the pitiful.

‘Its nothing.’ Jim sighed instead. ‘Shall we go to bed?’

He watched the feral expression on Bruce melt away, replaced by shame. His compassion stirring, he placed a comforting hand on the burning cheeks. ‘Let’s just sleep. We’ll talk tomorrow.’

‘Ok,’ the voice in the darkness was like a child begging for comfort, making Jim wince with discomfort and vague guilt.

‘I’m sorry I ran off on you,’ a quiet voice said in the dark just as Jim was drifting off again. ‘I-I had..’

‘Stuff to do,’ Jim told him gently.

‘And such,’ the younger man said, his voice grateful, and Jim felt the movement of his shrug. ‘You know how it is.’

‘I do now,’ Jim said quietly, his hand still carding through the dark head lying on his chest and savouring the way the damp hair curled slightly around his fingers like each individual lock too wanted an embrace. The breathing in Bruce’s lungs rattled raggedly, totally at odds with the cocky, ridiculously confident and inconsequential voice.

 ‘The price of being a Wayne,’ Bruce sighed extravagantly into the darkness, ‘is  _nobody_  ever realises what a pain it can be.’

Jim stared at the inky blue material above him as he digested the knowledge that that Bruce Wayne was a man not only accustomed to lying, but very good at it. Almost good enough to full a cop who had spent more hours than he cared to remember staring down hardened shylocks as he slowly untangled fact from fiction.

Far too good, in fact for a man of his pecuniary status to ever need to be.  

‘I wish this tent was  _transparent_ ,’ Bruce suddenly piped out, in a tone as petulant as a boy of five.

‘Why’d you wish that?’

‘So that we could get some moonlight,’ the young billionaire yawned. ‘Can’t see anythinshh.. in here.’

The corner of his mouth twitched. ‘You like to look at the moon?’

‘- like to look at  _you_ ,’ Bruce mumbled, the last thing he said before a gentle breathing filled the silence of the tent.   

Jim’s eyes however had shot back open, staring at the sleeping form curled beside him.

_You’re beautiful Jim_

Had he gone in too deep now? Could he still extricate himself from this before he did irreparable damage to the mercurial child-man beside him? Jim sighed. He should be taking Wayne to a therapist, not cowering under a bloody tent in the middle of a god forsaken jungle.

Alone, Jim stared unseeing into the dark, and the guilt weighed down like a brand in his head.

_I’m been watching you for a very long time._

_*_

 

 

 


	18. Chapter 18

 

_18_

Standing like an errant schoolboy in front of an unshaven, grimly seated Jim Gordon, Bruce reflected that it was probably true what they said about Murphy’s Law - that in nature, nothing ever goes right; and if everything was right, then something was obviously going wrong.

A  _sixteen_ -hour disappearing act, followed by a scene in the tent at 4am in the morning that could be construed as rape.  _Again._  He could hear Alfred’s dusty chuckle in his head.

He was screwed. 

And even if he could utilize the usual debonair-inconsequence and spin Jim a wildly disproportionate story about alien abductions and rare vintage wine auctions he simply couldn’t trust his proxy with, nothing would begin to explain the rather  _extreme_  liberties he had taken with the good commissioner’s person. Nor could he reveal that it had happened, for starters, because of a sizeable spray of hallucinatory toxins he had taken in the face from some green-haired female equivalent on the Scarecrow – one with size D cups and a tendency to croon at potted plants at that. No doubt they’ll be quite the couple at Arkham.

Add that to the fact that face against Jim’s steely blue eyes, Bruce found all his lies dying in his throat and his tongue flopping about like a fish out of water - 

The silence was killing him.                                     

Finally Jin shifted in his seat and removed his spectacles. ‘I just don’t get you, Wayne. For the last two days, there you were pulling all the stops- and two second later, you’d vanished into this air.’

‘I assure you I’m not at all enamoured of ectoplasm-’

‘Perhaps a very elaborate game of hide and seek then? Billionaire prank gone awry and you found yourself trapped in the man hole actually dug out for me?’

‘I wouldn’t go as far,’ Bruce said feebly. ‘It’s a very big forest.’

‘Is it another’ here the commissioner’s ears turned bright red as he cleared his throat ‘ah, gu- another girl?’

‘No!’ Bruce raised horrified eyes. ‘No.  _Never._ ’ 

‘I’m not saying that’s a terrible thing,’ Jim announced calmly into Bruce’s blanching face – sure the most terrible thing the commissioner has said in their long acquaintance, ever. ‘I’m just saying you need to tell me.’

 _Oh Jim,_ Bruce thought hopelessly; _that isn’t the thing that I needed to tell you._

Aloud he said, ‘There’s nobody else.’

‘Then what is it? Do you have split personality? Need to run off every so often to turn into a wolf or something?’

‘Jim. I can’t tell you.’ Bruce said hoarsely, hands falling to his side in a helpless gesture as he watched Gordon pursed his lips – and heaven help him; even in this wretched state he was turned on. He really shouldn’t have shaved off that moustache, Bruce thought to himself in despair. The worse thing Jim Gordon did was shave off that moustache.

Gordon frowned. “What’s wrong with you?”

I want to jump you, Bruce thought. I’m dying of lust.

‘You’ve been three different person on three different days. If this is the Bruce Wayne version of holiday entertainment, I’m not amused.’

‘No no please,’ Bruce pleaded, all the while trying to clamp down on his stirring libido, which had suddenly decided that an irritated Gordon was also a delicious one. ‘I wasn’t trying to entertain you. That is, I _was_  trying to entertain you, but-‘

‘Are you absolutely  _sure_  you don’t have split personality?’

‘No, Jim.’

Although Bruce thought that he might just be about to split his pants. He mentally shook his head at the bewildering subtle weave that made up the sum of Jim Gordon physically and personally – which made the commissioner so magnetic to him.  

Gordon the good. Gordon the gorgeous. Gordon the goddam saint. Gordan the illogically alluring and strangely shy. Gordon whose presence almost made his mouth go dry and his trouse- he means his  _throat, godammit,_  tight.

It was high time he abandoned the trench warfare in favour of full-frontal assault. Surely all that endless round of gossip tabloid, swooning women, and must hold him in some stead. He simply had to stick stubbornly to the mantra that it was all the commissoner’s fault. 

Bruce had no choice but to believe that, and hope for the best. The notion of being forever denied, trapped in a taste of forbidden lust was not an alternative that bear contemplating.

He held out his hand. ‘I’ll make it up to you. And he knew he had made the right decision because every time he locked eyes with Gordon the fringes of the world moved away from them.

Jim took it. ‘You’d better.’

And then he smiled.

*


	19. Chapter 19

19

Bruce Wayne was the most bloody relentless man that Jim Gordon had ever met.

No scrap that, Jim thought to himself as he prepared to worship at the altar of fancy coffee machines. Bruce Wayne was the second most bloody relentless man he’d ever met.

He’d had a truly terrible third day with the young billionaire; finding out in the process that the rich and entitled had a very skewered idea of what making up for lost time entiteled, and that it was something in fact, to be taken as literally as possible. Which meant that Jim had found himself with fishing rod in one hand and a butterfly net in the other – and subsequently somewhere a pair of binoculars found their way around his neck as Bruce unearthed, with the flourish of a vaudeville owner, an extra pair of hiking boots.

Then he’d dragged a panting and unwilling Jim up and down several miles of bush, pointing out various highlights of the landscape that Jim had been far too winded to appreciate, outside of the grudging observation that Wayne obviously had a massive amount of energy about him – small wonder that his bedroom exploits were so legendary

After that, they’d returned to the campsite by rafting back, though from where Bruce produced the inflatable boat and pump from Jim had NO clue, considering he only saw the man carry a small backpack, which had already contained a lunch more elaborate than he felt comfortable eating... while seated on a rock surrounded by wilderness.

Lord, but he felt tired just remembering the day they had.

The drive back to Gotham was quiet, the mercurial man beside him looking moody, almost depressed. With all the many facades that he’d been shown in just three days, Jim couldn’t help but wonder how it came to be that the city only seemed to know one side of Bruce Wayne – the stupid one. Which wasn’t to say that he wasn’t stupid – in fact if any of Jim’s varied perceptions of Wayne had been sealed on this trip, it would be that the young man was given to rather spectacular levels of idiocy - but there were so many aspects to Bruce aside from his crocked smile and asinine remarks that Jim simply did not believe that nobody else had caught on till now.

And so he had spent the rest of the trip back brooding. And after all the disappearing act and the too-skilled fish cleaning and pretty much the most weirdest pseudo-romantic getaway in his life, Jim had almost been glad to see the back of Wayne’s Porsche as it drove away, thinking that a few days away from the strange billionaire would do them both a world of good.

Not bloody likely.

He’d woken up after five hours of exhausted sleep to find an equal amount of messages on his cellphone, all neatly interspaced by exactly 60 minutes like clockwork.

Relentless.

Jim snorted to himself as he pulled the foam lever on the coffee machine, admiring the efficient whirling; the sheer speed at which his new baby responded. Heck, Wayne could keep his fast cars. All Jim wanted was a smooth, sleek, shinny-

‘I see you’ve recovered your equanimity.’

Jim jumped, coffee cup rattling and slopping its boiling hot contents of his fingers.

‘Or maybe not,’ the corner of Mayor Gracia’s lips quirked.

‘Shit, fuc-‘ Jim bit back the second half of the syllable just as one of Mayor Gracia’s manicured eyebrow rose in surprised amusement. ‘Sorry sir.’

‘No Commissioner, I shouldn’t have taken you by surprise,’ the Mayor held up his hands- which Jim’s brain inanely decided to notice was as well manicured as Wayne’s. ‘I know I’m not exactly in my own territory.’

‘Ah, what brings you to the GDP at such an early hour?’ Jim asked feebly as he wiped his throbbing fingers on kitchen towel.

‘I dropped by to admire the new fittings,’ Gracia told him. ‘So - what do you think?’

‘I think I know now why you insisted on such an extended vacation,’ Jim said flatly.

‘Yes, rather amazing what four days and teak wood panelling can do to the ambiance of a place,’ the mayor said agreeably as he rested his weight against the sleek chrome counter. ‘Recept told me that you walked past your own office twice before you recognised it.’

Jim opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, and said nothing.

‘Though frankly I’m a personal fan of marble, myself.’

You would, Jim thought silently to himself; slippery high-maintenance veneers suit you to a tee.

‘You could have told me the real reason for the enforced holiday,’ Jim grumbled aloud. ‘I’m not a complete stick in the mud. Ok I am. Everything here is ridiculous.’ Except for the coffee machine, he silently added.

‘Doesn’t your bah- humbug routine get old?’

‘I don’t want my men getting used to something that’s going to be taken away from them the moment some moneybags gets bored with their weekend charity case,’ Jim blurted out, taken by surprise by the mayor’s directness. ‘I’m no Ebenezer.’

Gracia rattled the keys in his pocket and took his time to reply. ‘Wayne might constantly say the wrong things, but he’s always done the right thing. That alone might be worth some faith, don’t you think?’

Jim didn’t know how to refute that, so he brought time by blowing at his steaming cup.

‘O mio dio, is that a Clover?’ The mayor’s voice suddenly turned reverent. ‘I don’t think I’ve even seen one physically before.’

Jim rolled his eyes as he took sip of his Viennese. ‘And how much do they cost? Six hundred? Seven hundred?’

The keys jingled in Gracia’s pocket, and Jim snapped. ‘One thousand dollars is a ridiculous amount of money of an electric bean-grinder.’

Antony Gracia’s face actually contained a bit of pity in it. ‘Try eleven. Thousand.’ Then he congenially whacked Jim on the back as the commissioner leaned against the newly renovated kitchen counter, choking. ‘Maybe you shouldn’t fight so hard.’

‘Then I’m in the wrong line, don’t you think?’ Jim asked wearily as he reached again for the kitchen roll. ‘Fighting’s what I do best.’

‘Why’d you always feel that Wayne needs beating away with a stick?’

‘Because the Gotham Police Department is not his, hi-his new mistress,’ Jim said, and even as the words left his lips he knew what he had really meant to say, and from the expression on Gracia’s face he knew it too.

‘That might be taking premeditation a bit too far, Jim. I don’t think anybody could accuse the GDP of being that,’ the mayor said solemnly, although the effect was almost entirely spoilt by the wicked gleam in his kohl-lined eyes as he waved goodbye. ‘Ciao, Commissioner.’

Alone, Jim suddenly found the shiny new pantry oppressive, and he squirreled silently back to his office with a fresh pot, almost missing the chrome doors again. The floor in front of his office burst into laughter, but Jim decided that escape was a lot more important than quelling their blatant disrespect and slammed the doors shut behind him.

He eyed his new chair with trepidation, wondering if its spindly legs would be able to support his upper body weight. And where have they taken his bloody computer?

Jim picked up the receiver of something he thought might be a phone, although it was shaped like a baton. The buttons stared back at him, as mysterious and incomprehensible as ever. Seven attempts later, his secretary’s voice finally answered back.

‘Ah, Miss Dale,’ Jim cleared his throat. ‘Have you seen – did you see what they did with the computer?’

There was a protracted pause. ‘It’s on your desk, sir.’

Frowning, Jim shifted folders and looked under his desk. ‘I don’t see anything.’

‘It’s right in front of you, Commisioner. The black thing? I put it there myself.’

Jim stared at the flat lacquered thing that he had earlier dismissed as a tea tray.

‘Never mind, Miss Dale. I think I found it.’

Jim put down the phone, pushed his laptop away, dropped his forehead on the desk and closed his eyes.

There were days when he truly hated Bruce Wayne.

*


	20. He BAD

Chapter 20

It was Sunday, which was technically not a work day but definitely not an off day, and Jim found himself in Chinatown wandering nostalgically past the streets he used walk and wondering why even the streets that stank with such poverty and industry would somehow contrive to remind him of Bruce Wayne.

He’d never been someone to paid much attention to the contents of the many sundry shops, but today he found himself unaccountable curious, gazing intently at heaps of riotously colorful & pragmatic plastic items, mystifying prayer paraphernalia, and baskets of unnamable sundries with their withered skins and shrunken forms, some of them emitting a musty bouquet that Jim could only describe as not yet toxic.

The funny thing was, whilst he’d spent a good two decades wandering in and out of these same streets, and, even if he’d had spent another two decades, the contents of these exotic shops and its inhabitants would remain as mysterious and impenetrable, whilst Bruce…

He couldn’t say where the certainty came from, but Jim was somehow convinced that Bruce Wayne would be able to identify the names, customs and usages of any random item he picked up on this street.

Which begets some rather interesting questions about the man’s mysterious past, which Jim thought he’d best be investigating a little further infield, seeing that they seemed to be now involved- the Commissioner hastily cut off that line of thought, stuffed his hands into his pockets, found some coins, and brought a stick of Taiwanese sausages from a street peddler, who to his horror actually still recognized him.

‘Oho! You missing wrong-wrong time, yess? No more cop?’

‘Er. I’m still a cop,’ Jim said, wondering if he should have lied. ‘I transferred.’ Perhaps he should have worn a hat.

‘Good! Good!’ The sausage seller boomed. ‘You go to safer place. Mister Wang say Chinatown not good; everyday crime!’

‘We’ve doubled the manpower on this street alone.’

‘Good! Good! Badman he come once a month. Saved ah Lim’s laundry shop over there, see? She put his picture on the wall, next to King of Pop!’ the vendor jabbed the air with a sausage skewer.

Jim shuddered. ‘Tell your neighbors not to get to close. He’s still a dangerous vigila- ah, he’s still a wanted criminal.’

‘We want him come! Chinatown say, FUN YING welcome to the badman! We putting the big banner soon, play king of pop – he’s bad, he’s bad-‘

‘I get it,’ Jim grabbed his sausage before the man could start another fury of gesticulations.

‘Come next week, I make new lecipie – Badman sausage!’

‘Ok, ok,’ Jim said, clutching his skewer and backing away. ‘Ah, thanks.’

‘Next week ah! You try Badman sausage- you not try anything else!’

Jim started walking away as fast as he could from the vendor’s booming voice, his ears ringing.

*

Aly C, ex undercover extraordinaire of Gotham, could sometimes be very tiresome, even on her day off.

‘And then what happened?’

‘I already told you everything that transpired. Twice.’

‘But you didn’t tell me where Wayne actually went and AWOL to.’

Jim spread his fingers in exasperation. ‘That’s because I never found out where he went.’

Disapproval and amusement warred for dominance on Ally’s features. ‘You’re a detective, Jim. Surely Bruce Wayne wouldn’t be able to wriggle out that easily, and the fact that he did-’ a gurgle of laughter escaped; ‘-can only mean he must have taken his pants off and knocked your socks off.’

‘My socks stayed on, thank you.’ Jim said dryly. ‘The tent was a tad chilly.’

‘Perhaps Mr Moneybags sneaked off to buy an appliance that can thaw through that iceberg of yours.’

‘Perhaps icebergs exist for a good reason? I might not even be gay. I’ve ever even been bisexual..’ he trailed off, then glared accusingly across the table. ‘You haven’t even asked me if I was gay.’

‘Well forgive me if I skip over the part where I ask you if you’re attracted to a overwhelmingly good looking hunk of hubba hubba. Points a bit moot, if you ask me.’

‘Dont I get a say in anything?’

Aly actually looked surprised. ‘What’s there to say? Jump into bed first. Decide later.’

Jim almost spat out his coffee. ‘Never.’

Aly rolled her eyes. ‘Why not?’

‘Why? Gah! Because it’s not right! And even if it is, he’s not right.’

What did they call those type of people in the old ages? Libertines. Yes. Bruce Wayne was one of those decadent, drawling, dawdling Casanova types whose chief task in life was to put as many notches into his bedpost regardless of gender, which seemed consistent in keeping with the whole bacchanalian excess thing. Apparently without taste also, where Bruce Wayne was concerned. That was not so typical, but Wayne just had to be a rebel 

‘Look, I know what your worries are, but I’m telling you that you’re over thinking it. Wayne might be insane, but he’s not blind, Jim.’

‘Blind is exactly what he’d have to be to want this,’ Jim gestured unhappily to himself. ‘You’re supposed to tell me to get over myself and er, soldier on.’

‘Actually, I think Gracia is right, and this might actually turn out to be good for you, and if not, then good for everybody else. I get my promotion, the mayor gets his money, and you get to wake up next to the baddest good-looker in Gotham. Everybody’s happy.’

Jim sighed.

Ally grinned. ‘Maybe if you moved in with Wayne he’ll give us all a car, whadaya think?’

‘I think I should have known better than to ask you anything.’

‘It’s a harmless bit of fun,’ she shrugged. ‘You’re entitled, Jim. You’ve worked hard, you know your priorities and you’ve put paid to the school of hard knocks. Thanks to Batman, things are better than they’ve ever been. Everybody deserves a bit of fun in their sunset years-’

‘Emphasis on sunset,’ Jim grunted.

‘Who knows, maybe its Wayne’s favourite time of day.’ Aly smiled then, making her looked quite illuminated, untouched by time. ‘Surely you’re not going to hold a man’s taste against him.’

‘It appears I no longer know the definition of my own taste.’

‘I have every confidence that in time you’ll both figure out what goes where.’ Ally told him with a perfectly straight face.

*


	21. the compulsary candlelit chapter

 

‘A  _church_?’

Bruce winced at the bafflement in Jim Gordon’s voice as he strode ahead. ‘Its no longer in use, so we’re not in danger of running into anyone.’

They were standing before a staid, grey-bricked Mansard with dirty tinted windows that must once been magnificent; now caked with impenetrable grime - a silent sentinel of the better times that the neighborhood once enjoyed.

Jim hesitated under the ancient arched doors. ‘Is it structurally sound?’

‘Guess there's only one way to find out.’

Bruce paced his steps slowly; forcing Jim to follow him deeper into the interiors by walking ahead and giving him enough time to adjust to the gloomy environment and overcome his natural prejudices, but not enough time for him to consider running away. It was, he thought dryly, not unlike trying to acquaint a very skittish deer to a clearing.

When he was satisfied that he'd lured his prey far enough along, he grabbed Jim’s hand with a predatory grin.

‘Close your eyes.’

‘I feel like a girl,’ Jim complained.

‘It might help if you try not to compartmentalize so much,’ Bruce suggested as he darted forward and stole a kiss that Jim wouldn’t have the time to react to, then admired his handiwork in the answering blush that inexplicably reminded him of mimosas - sensitive and responsive and  _oh goddon’t gothereBruce._ Because that way lies madness. Yes.  _Madness._

He led Jim through the rows of broken isles, across the stage, and up a narrow cast-iron staircase which circled onto a narrow balustrade that must have once held a pipe organ during Gotham City’s grander, more affluent epochs.

‘Is this absolutely necessary?’ the Commissioner groused gingerly as he clutched at the slender railings and flailed on each rusty, protesting step. 

‘Trust me. You’ll like the view.’ Because  _he_  certainly did.

‘I’d like to not break an ankle. Are you sure this thing can take our weight?’

Bruce silently begun to wonder himself; two grown men on creaking, two hundred year old ornamental staircase was cause for a fair bit of apprehension, even if one of them had not been blindfolded.

‘I promise you that the risk of certain death is worth it,’ he drawled with false bravado. ‘Here we are.’

‘Hmph. At least you didn’t bring me to some ubiquitous-‘Jim opened his eyes.

_Opps._

‘-candlelight dinner,’ the Commissioner sighed.

Bruce considered the silver candlesticks gleamed against a black tablecloth. Perhaps the Dionysian centerpiece had been an unnecessary touch.  ‘You could count your blessings. At least I waited some time before springing one on you?’

Perhaps Jim might have squeaked in reply; Bruce wasn’t sure, his mind was busy formulating Plan B just in case the night went pear shaped. ‘We can go somewhere else, if you prefer. Though of course, you’ll have to brave the staircase again.’

‘I’m not sure I’m ready just yet to repeat that on an empty stomach,’ Jim’s lips twitched. ‘Shall we?’

 Bruce nodded tersely, not sure if he trusted himself to speak, and pulled out a chair.

‘ _Gimme_  that.’

And the chair was snatched from Bruce before he could blink.

‘I  _swear_  that I wasn’t going to pull it out for you,’ the younger man protested. Although he wasabout to do exactly that. Apparently he had a lot more to learn about the whole business of dating a man than he realized.

‘Of course you weren’t,’ the Commissioner murmured with a perfectly straight face. ‘Not that I don’t appreciate the effort, but I’m not. You know. A girl.’

Bruce sat down because he badly needed to, splayed his fingers on the table and said in the most earnest voice he could summon; ‘Jim Gordon, I find you to be… Absolutely. Most vehemently.  _Incontrovertibly._  Not remotely girl-like at all.’

Steel grey eyes narrowed at him.

 _‘Please_  don’t go. I went through so much trouble to get the coasters and the cutler to match.’

To his relief Jim finally pulled out a chair and sank reluctantly down, although he still looked like he was forcing himself not to run screaming away.

 _‘Never_  do this again.’

‘I promise to never do this again.’

*

 

It didn’t turn out  _too_  badly. They had a scallop Carpaccio starter, which he liked, followed by lamb shank, which he knew Jim wouldn’t be too uncomfortable with. He’d kept topping Jim’s glass with Chateaus, and his own with a champagne bottle filled with ginger ale.  

After that, he had been pleasantly surprised when Jim had suggested exploring the premise. They had wandered the hall, voices automatically falling into a mummer in the magical, gloaming night. Bruce breathed it all in; the subtle, slightly spicy scent of cologne on Jim, the light glinting off his metallic spectacles, the surprisingly fashionable V-necked knit that Jim filled out  _remarkably_  well. He wanted to remember everything.

Jim gave him a wry smile when he finally drummed up the courage to place an arm oh-so-casually around his shoulders.

‘Isn’t there some sort of law against seducing somebody in a church?’

‘So who’d disapprove of two people having a good time together?’

‘Oh, I don’t know about that,’ the older man gestured at one of the stained glass window. ‘For instance,  _they_ look disapproving,’

‘Yeah well, unsolicited voyeurs don’t get to claim the moral high ground.’

‘Neither do trespassers.’

‘That would be them, since I happen to own the land they stand on,’ Bruce said. ‘And you don’t get to sidle out of this with chatter, Jim. Come here.’

He pulled Jim in with the crook of his arm and kissed him, moving his lips firmly but languidly across a mouth that tasted of red wine and cigarettes. His hands skimmed over hard shoulders, traced biceps and forearms, molded themselves to a waist and flat stomach that caused tremors into his own.

After a good minute, he finally felt Jim responding with a muffled sound, mouth widening beneath a coaxing tongue, and suppressed the hungry sound that threatened to erupt from his own throat.  

Tonight, it took three hours.  Perhaps one day it might take an hour. Perhaps one day, it would be the first thing they did before anything else.

He does not, of course tell Jim Gordon any of this. He knows better. Bruce Wayne had never had the luxury of telling the people he loved very many things.

Perhaps it was just as well he’s had all this years to practice.

 ‘From here,’ the older man cleared his throat when he finally pulled apart; ‘w-with all the stained glass it looks a bit like a castle.’

‘I have a theory… that that’s how the world’s first comic books started,’ Bruce murmured as he wrapped his arms around Jim from behind. They both looked at the passing car lights briefly illuminate the faces of the saints, and Bruce traced the a jawline with the back of his hand. ‘There was a man who wandered into a castle once, seeking shelter from the storm. Unbeknownst to him, the castle was inhabited by a beast, who, though of demonic countenance and ferocious disposition was actually a prince-‘

Jim gave a muffled laugh. ‘I can’t believe you’re telling me a fairy tale.’

‘I’ll have you know that ever word is true.’

‘You do realize that I have a daughter who just turned six.’

 ‘In that case, perhaps we should skip straight to the happy ending.’

He didn’t know what it was he said, but expression on the other man’s face instantly shuttered.

‘Jim?’

‘I’m not sure I’m ready for  _this._ ’ Jim waved the air before him vaguely.

‘Religion’s not for everybody-’ then at Jim’s serious expression, expelled a long breath. ‘Jim, you know I’d never do anything to hurt you-‘

‘ _Stop._  I told you, I’m not a girl.’

‘Yes, well. Sorry.’

Jim shook his head, a surreal (dismayed) look on his face. ‘Am I… the only one who hasn’t done this before?’

‘I. No,’ Bruce faltered, then confessed. ‘I’ve never had this sort of feelings before.’

‘Ah.  _Ah_.’

A moment passed when they both seemed to be holding their breaths, waiting for the other to proceed.

‘I’ve always been the one… standing behind,’ Jim paused, clearly looking for a way to rephrase himself. ‘And I think- I think it’s a little late in the day to try to teach an old dog a new trick. The odds are just not very good of him… taking to it.’

What could he say when he knew he silently agreed in his heart of hearts? It was always going to be a relationship based on secrecy and lies. He had exhausted too much of himself spinning his web, and somewhere along the line Bruce Wayne had fallen into darkness; but it was a darkness he could not, would not, give up. Not even for Jim Gordon. It was all he had.

And he could never reveal who Batman was. The knowledge would tear the Jim Gordon apart.

As if reading his thoughts, Jim spoke up. ‘I’ve never been unfamiliar with shadows. I’m a cop.’ He said it with some satisfaction; as if it was a word he didn’t get to use much anymore. ‘You might say I have an affinity. But you-’ His gaze, though as honest and direct as it always was, remained opaque to Bruce. ‘You’re shady in a way I’ve never seen before. And I’ve seen a lot of shades.’

‘I’m not… easy, Jim’ Bruce faltered.  _How did they come to this so fast?_  ‘But I’m not evil. I have… some hobbies that might not make sense, but the tabloids… that’s not who I am.’

‘There’s no need to belabor the obvious.’ Jim said, sounding almost disappointed. ‘Bruce, I’m sorry but I’m going to need something more from you, if you want-‘ he broke off with an ironic look on his face - clearly the oman had also not anticipated the advance nature of their conversation, and all its ramifications.

_How had they come to this so fast?_

_*_


	22. Back to one

 

The morning mist settled over Gotham like a mourning veil,  In this dawn, Bruce rested his chin on his hands and watched the man slumbering peacefully in his bed.

The early edition that Alfred had discretely slipped under his door had two break-ins; one which lead to the murder of two innocent children.

One night off the beat, and the price of lesser vigalence weighed heavily on his shoulders.

They couldn’t continue to do this, Bruce told himself, swallowing the despair that threatened to bury his heart in rocks. It was simply going to fast, and sooner or later something would break that he couldn’t  afford to pay.

He buried his face in his fingers and closed his eyes againts the the encroaching light.

*

 _I can’t do this_ , Jim thought to himself as he reknotted his tie for the third time.  _Its going too fast._

They were going to meet in broad daylight.  _For lunch._

Broad daylight in the city. Jim was _doomed._

He would never have accepted this invitation if the voice at the end of the line hadn’t been so brusque. There had been no twee remark this time from Bruce, no slyly humorous non-sequitur; and the somber conversation had been uncharacteristically short.

He was just happy that he’d managed to end the conversation and slammed down the phone just was his PA walked in, casting a look of intense curiosity at his flushed face.

His cellphone beeped from his pocket as him hurries to the lift, glad for once of his misbegotten impulse to go out and buy a younger jacket. Looks just like Burberry, the salesgirl had told him as she handed his purchase over, and Jim had been utterly mystified as to why anybody would wish to emulate a designer who had named himself after breakfast jam.

Of course he could do this. He only had to hold his own for an hour; make sure he picked up the right cutlery… and somewhere along the last course and coffee Jim would tell Bruce, calmly, that he had thought about it and found they were better off as friends.

How hard could it be?

*

There was a strange sort of tension in Bruce, a tightness of the jaw and hardness of the eyes that Jim had never encountered before. Before Jim reaches the table a voice within him already urges him to leave, the same intuitive voice that had saved Jim from wrong choices and violence and certain death in a lifetime  fighting crime.

Jim pulls out the chair anyways,  taking in the contained silence wrapped around Bruce like pall. It’s the calm before the storm, he knows, and Jim suddenly wished he could walk away from all this and get back behind the barricaded safety of his office doors. His mouth becomes suddenly and inexplicably parched.

Hesitantly, he made the first move. ‘How was your day?’

‘Good. How was your morning?’

‘Good.’

Bruce might have lifted the corners of his mouth, but it wasn’t a smile, it didn’t reach his eyes. He gave an elegant shrug and gestured at the menu. ‘Shall we order?’

Jim turned his eyes to the table, examining the beads of condensation sparkling on the bottle of mineral on the table. He was parched, but the bottle seemed too far away, a deceiving arms-length, untouchable. Like the man across him. Like the word  _Good_. 

He was grateful for the waiter (bulter? Service manager?) who filled his glass for him, who asked him how many slices of lemon he would like in his glass. The silence at the table after their orders had been taken was deafening. There was no wind, and Jim pulled at his tie and watches the sweating glass, and when the silence strained againts him, cast his desperate gaze around the décor.

‘It’s a nice place.’ One Jim was sure Bruce knew would put him at a disadvantage.

‘It has the trappings of adequacy,’ the younger man shrugged.

‘I see.’

‘After all the slumming.’

‘If you want me to take you seriously,’ Jim told him in a low voice, ‘why don’t you tell me exactly what you’re really trying to say?’

There was an inhuman gleam in Wayne’s lazy gaze when he leaned back and clasped his fingers together. ‘Surely you didn’t think I ever looked like somebody who took myself seriously, Commissioner?’

‘You were.’ Jim licked his lips, parched. His throat was a desert, the cavity of his heart was drying up. ‘Serious.’  _Till today._

‘Perhaps we should go back to our own worlds,’ Wayne picked his glass and sipped slowly, fingers long and tanned, and Jim mirrored him by picking up his own glass.

It was this that he would remember this, he knew; more than the spoken words. The aftertaste of lemon rind on his tongue, the thick linen table cloth beneath his thumb pad and forefinger, the glimmering, perfect skin  on Wayne’s hands. For god knows how long, the pained silence stretched between them. Jim counted the time by the strange jerking beneath his ribcage; it took some time to remember that the pounding,  _dying_ thing in his chest was his vital,  _unnecessary_  heart. Stupid organ, really. Totally excessive.

Reaching for the glass feels like a lifeline; feels like the only sane thing his mind could focus on because the rest of him has been swept away, swept away by-

By nothing. By nothing. Jim feels nothing. It had been a fling, nothing more.

With Bruce Wayne, no less. He ought to have been honored. 

‘Jim…’

‘I’m fine.’

Bruce pushed his chair back. ‘I’ll get the cheque.’

*

A sudden urgency for the privacy of his car propelled him to quicken his footsteps, wrapping his trench coat against him again and again, and suddenly stopping short when he saw his own reflection against a  shop window. Was that the Commissioner or Gotham, a reputably solid and unflappable man; hugging himself like a child? Looking like he was walking against a gale when there was nothing more than the faintest of breeze? Jim looked away, but he knew he was not a liar; at least not to himself. He knew his own body was trying to comfort him, arms heavy and protective over one’s vitals, trying to hold it all in. He’d seen it plenty of times in his line. 

He’d seen Barbara do it, goddamm him, when he’d failed as a husband and father to her.

A limousine pulled up alongside, startling him badly. The opaque windows churned open and Bruce looked at him, opening his mouth; and for a split second something hanged between them - a gossamer, crystalline thing, and Jim hoped one of them would say- do something colossally idiotic, his heart almost stopping with the certainty of his hopes- 

Then Wayne cleared his throat and the moment shattered, turned to dust, flickers once and was gone with the twisting wind, leaving a faint scent of burning that quickly disappeared.

‘Take care, Jim.’

He watched the windows whirl up and the car roll away – and slowly exhaled.

It was not right and it never had been, and he should be glad the charade was over. Yes. Yes. He just had to remember how to breathe, and how to… well, just to breath. Surely he could do that. Surely his lungs would not betray him  _now_ , at this juncture, when he had been through so much more.

_Goodbye._

There was a faint scent of burning from somewhere; a razor dryness to the air. Somewhere a police siren breaks out into a wail, but Jim could neither hear, nor feel a thing.

*

 


	23. Misery and company

 

Chapter 23

 

In fact, misery did not like company. Especially if said company turned out to be Alfred, whose idea of relationship counselling was to subject Bruce to a bruising discourse on all his flawed ideas of courtship. In French.

Followed by German.

For the first three days.

‘-in addition to your disappointing ability to measure word to suit action, and action to suit circumstance-‘

‘Ah, you’ve moved on to English.’

‘…is not to be toyed with! You simply have to accept, Master Bruce, that as a man gets going in his years-

‘I’m not t _hat_ old.’

‘-one simply can no longer afford to  _keep screwing it up_ , as you seem to do so prodigiously well. ’ Alfred relentlessly mowed him down. ‘And while one is aware in this day and age that gratuitous sex is everywhere-‘

‘Alfred, I am  _not_  talking about sex. With you.’

‘-this is  _very different_  from the possibility of having someone to share a life with. Especially _your_ kind of life.’

‘Share- I-I can’t share!' Startled, Bruce blustered up at his butler, aiming for 'accusing' but executing 'pathetic'. ‘You of all people should know that.’

Something in his face must have finally gotten through to Alfred, because the older man’s demeanour softened. ‘If there is a single person left in Gotham you can entrust the nature of your... unique burdens to, Jim Gordon is that man.  _Try_  not to permanently bollocks it up.’

Bruce stared miserably out of the window. ‘I think I already did.’

*

Anthony Gracia has been the mayor of Gotham City for exactly two years and eight months now, and the experience confirms what he always knew all along.

He adores power.  _Adores it._ Loves the fact that he can walk straight-faced into his big expensive office with the sullen body guards and polished marble floors, close the doors; and get down to some serious early-morning mooning, accompanied by Aha’s  _Take On Me_  and some rousing callanetics. Nobody had ever caught him. Or came close to guessing the truth.

But Anthony loves his job not just because he can take off his pants in the most prestigious address in town and get away with it. He genuinely loves this city, especially on days Mika plays from his Bang & Olufsen Beolab 5 (yet another office perk) as he surveys the bustle of his tiny kingdom down below.

He’s always found it ironic, that such a big part of governance consisted of keeping people in their place. Anthony had always known that his biggest challenge would lie in convincing people that there was enough space further up the ladder, and all one had to do was  _step up_. Especially people like Jim Gordon.

The problem with people like Jim is that deep down, he doesn't think he belonged in an office where the floors could sometimes be shinny as the back of a spoon. Just like Anthony was certain Jim would assert that he doesn't belong with somebody like Wayne, even though the look on his face enroute out yesterday had been all nervous excitement. Then he’d returned from lunch looking almost…obliterated, and Anthony hadn’t thought that it was possible for someone to look so devastated in the space of two hours.

Which could only mean that his air-headed friend had gone and put his royal foot in it and screwed everything up.

Well, he’d would just have to fix it. Aside from wardrobe allowances, solving problems like _this_  was why he was mayor of such a prestigious city. Anthony had _plans_  for Gotham City, and he wasn’t about to let two club-footed lovebirds get in his way of world domination.

*

Irony was an arsehole, Jim thought sullenly to himself as he chewed mechanically at the lunch sandwich in his hand. His cell phone flashed again and Jim turned it off unhappily. How pathetic could he get, refusing to answer Ally’s phone calls and hiding here of all places, looking for answers at the bottom of his seventh cup of coffee?

Jim couldn’t risk picking up her calls though. Ally might be the kind of lift he needed at the moment, but she was too perceptive by half, and likely to piece together the cause of his unhappiness. Worse, she might even try to do something about.

Besides, he wasn’t ready to talk about his feelings. How it sat on his gut all day and night, as if he’d swallowed a glass ball. Jim does’t think he’d been this depressed about something since-

Since Babara. Jesus Christ, he’d fallen far, and in a bad way for it all this to happen to him so fast.

Jim snorted to himself. For weeks he’d been casting about for a way to delicately tell Wayne to leave him alone, and now that his prayers have been answered, here he was, cowering in the boiler room in a desperate bid to escape the younger man’s invisible shadow. Again. Which was neigh impossible to do, now that everywhere he looked, the sleek and shiny fittings of his new office accosted him everywhere. It was a jeering reminder him that Wayne’s ‘slumming’ phrase was over, thanks for the ride, and here’s departmental makeover, the Billionaire Boy’s Club interpretation of a fruit basket for your trouble.

Jim stood up, dusted his pants and binned the coffee. If he couldn’t stay in his office, where everything was calculated to remind him of his own humiliation, there was no point in fooling himself. He refused to be a kicked, lovesick pup, and quite frankly couldn’t afford to be one, not when there’s still so much to do.

Jim would simply have to soldier on.

 


	24. Why we fall

 

‘So that the good people of Gotham know  _just_  who you can depend on!‘ beamed Anthony Gracia.

‘Depend on the Wayne Industries to keep good wages-’ Bruce purred sleekly on the Mayor’s right.

‘-Uh, depend on the Police Force... to keep ’

‘CUT!’ the director’s voice severed the remains of Jim’s sentence. Relieved, Jim let the frigid smile drop from his face, and resisted the urge to massage his jaw.

‘Commissioner Gordon,’ the director said in a don’t-try-me voice. ‘Do try to keep up. We need some snappiness from you, all right? You gotta start strong and keep it coming-’

Calm. Jim had to remain calm. ‘Yes, all right.’

‘It’s all right to be nervous,’ Wayne reassured him with a wink. ‘First time and all.’

The Mayor rounded up on him. ‘Commissioner, the people would very much prefer to think of the police force as brave, outgoing men who make up Gotham’s finest, rather than someone who’d rather chew glass than reach out to the people.’

‘Friendly and dependable, that’s us,’ Wayne chuckled jovially.

Jim’s gaze stayed mutinously on the floor.

‘I don’t expect you to be Harvey Dent-‘ Mayor Gracia went on as Jim flinched. ‘But we’ve all got to step up, man, sacrifice some comfort-‘

‘I know exactly what you mean, I actually got up at 10am today,’ Wayne chipped in helpfully, and Jim’s eyes whipped up to meet him with hate. He looked exceptionally expensive today, which was really saying something for someone like Wayne. The sunny, fake grin plastered on his face set Jim’s teeth on edge.

‘I’m going to take advantage of the break and get a cigarette,’ is all Jim says as he turns away.

‘Might as well make it a lunch break. And Jim,’ the Mayor warned. ‘Don’t forget it’s the tax payer’s money we’re wasting on all this retakes. ’

As if he could forget. Embarrassment throbs on Jim’s skin like an ache, sticks to him like a wet smell. He walks past the muttering camera crew and ignore the make-up ladies who titter and call him back, hunching his shoulders and slipping into the fire escape. He takes two flights of stairs down; and finally not quite knowing what else to do, sits on the landing, depressed.

Lately it felt like his life constituted of trying to escape from something or other.

Someone coughs behind him and Jim doesn’t need to turn around to know who it is. He pursed his lips and waited.

‘Jim.’ Wayne’s voice is quiet and soft, a far cry from the vacant, saccharine voice he used earlier in front of the camera.

 ‘How did you manage to sneak up behind me?’ Jim mutters, although they both know it’s not really a question, because Wayne would only answer with obscurities and lies. It’s not really a question about sneaking either. It’s a hundred questions rolled into one - like who taught him how to hold a knife and how to clean a fish, (and Jin knows it definitely wasn’t his father), how long it took him to he perfect his obfuscation and acting skills, to be able to draw on it so thoroughly and indefinitely without breaking into sweat; right down to his ability to influence the atmosphere around him. What great illegal secret (it couldn’t be anything else) could Wayne be hiding that necessitated so lubricious, to total a masquerade from the world. From Jim.

Most of all he wanted to ask why Wayne picked him. Jim Gordon, an absolute nobody, to show all these dark complexities to.

‘It’s tougher for some people than it is for others,’ Wayne says in that quiet voice of his. It’s a dangerous voice because it sounds so truthful (when it wasn’t), because it’s the kind of voice that makes Jim feel bared and vulnerable.

He keeps quiet instead, and Wayne mummers a barely audible ‘may I’ and sits beside him on the steps. He looks ridiculous, like one of those fashion spreads where they put Chanel models in slumps and had the audacity to call it art.

A minute went by, then another.

‘It’s easier to hold your smile if you lift your jaw a little higher.’

Jim doesn’t reply.

‘Jim-‘

_‘No.’_

Somehow, he could sense Wayne grimacing beside him. ‘I know I deserve this. You anger. I got…spooked.’ The subsequent hesitation Wayne radiated felt almost like fear. ‘You need to know why.’

‘Do I really?’

He has surprised to feel the man flinching beside him, as if he had taken a cut.

 ‘I guess I’ll have to rely on your compassion… as I once did.’

Jim takes a while to remember. ‘Surely you’re not thinking of-‘

‘I’ve never forgotten that day,’ Wayne nodded, and some of the darkness leaks out. ‘I will never forget.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘We fall so we can get up again,’ Bruce says simply. ‘I’ve found a way to… get up.’ He pauses and takes a breath, like he’s fighting something. ‘If you meet me tonight.. I’ll tell you… I’ll  _show_  you.’

‘Wayne I’m so-‘

‘-not at the penthouse. The Palisades. I know it’s a bit further, but-‘

 ‘I’m a cop,’ Jim says this sharply. It’s the best warning he can give.

‘You have duties,’ Wayne exhales. ‘I know.’ He says this simply, and it sounds like surrender, like a man who’s stopped running.

There were so many things wrong with this picture. Warning bells tickled at his senses. Jim should say no. He doesn’t want to know, hasn’t the time to get himself involved with the games rich people play.

Could the Commisioner of Gotham afford to know?

Could Jim afford not to know?

‘All right,’ he says at last, and watched Bruce Wayne inhale as if he could finally breathe again.

He hopes they don’t both live to regret it.

*


	25. And one in blue

 

Relief shone in Wayne’s eyes as he pulled open the door.

‘Thank you for coming.’

‘I made a promise,’ Jim told him brusquely as he came in. Watching the smile falter on Wayne’s face was strangely satisfying in a painful sort of way.

Fingers carded through tousled hair. ‘Ok. Ok.’ Jim watched him silently. Lord, but Wayne looked terrible. He might have aged ten years between this morning and their meeting, so haggard did he look. Something in Jim twitches. Something he refuses to admit might be sympathy.

‘Wayne-’

‘Call me Bruce.’ Jim was taken aback by how much pain showed in the younger man’s face. ‘Please. Even if only for tonight.’

‘Ok.’

The younger man looked uncharacteristically nervous. ‘Can I get you some coffee?’

‘I don’t intend to stay long, Bruce.’

‘No,’ the younger man said almost to himself as he turned away, hiding his face. ‘I didn’t suppose so. This way.’

They walked in silence past the grand foyer into the study, where Bruce lead him to a piano that sat in stately splendour next to rows of ceiling-high shelves. Jim swallowed and looked away, trying not to be affected by the ascetics of Wayne’s tanned, perfectly shaped fingers on the piano keys. Goddamn Bruce Wayne and his un-diminishable near perfection.

He was startled by the sudden movement beside him, turning in time to gape as one of the immense bookshelves swung open to reveal a secret passageway.

‘You’re kidding.’

His host inclined his head with a forbearing smile. ‘It gets better. After you.’

The older man found himself stepping with some incredulity into a hidden elevator shaft, his mind reeling with the possibilities.

‘Nobody knows you, do they?’

‘No.’ Then hard gaze softened. ‘Although someone once did.’

Jim swallowed as the elevator begun its descent.  Now he truly worried about the scale of what Bruce wanted to show him. A trapdoor and a mining lift? Was the man so rich because of an illegal guns trade? Was he the secret head of all the crime lords that Jim has been fighting on streets?

The atmosphere in the cramped quarters became excruciatingly tense. Wayne stared at him with hooded, hungry eyes. The dim flickering lights and the wired steel of the lift walls throwing it shadows over him made him look like a caged wolf, primitive and dangerous.

Exactly how many _face_ s did this man have?

Things were getting too gritty, Jim decided, regretting his decision not to bring his sidearm along. He took comfort in the small auto strapped to his right leg, although the draw time was ridiculous and it probably wouldn’t stop a man like Wayne.

Then the realisation hits him like a punch in the gut; that very little would stop a man like Wayne.

He’d just have to reply on, ah _… charm_. For reasons he has yet to comprehend, Bruce Wayne wants him. Jim can admit this much now.

The lift grounded to halt, and Jim found himself walking out onto a massive, sprawling subterranean palace, easily quadrupling the size of Wayne Mansion.

‘It was originally built for the Underground Railroad,’ the low voice beside him was too close, raised goose bumps on his skin. Jim nodded hesitantly and followed Wayne along the platforms, trying not to gape like a school kid on his first trip to someplace really cool.

He saw the tumbler first.

For a long while, just staring at that monolith, iconic fighting machine removed all adult thought from Jim’s mind. All he could think of with a great deal of awe, was ‘Batman’s here.’ Followed by ‘Bruce Wayne and Batman are friends.’ Followed by-

_Impossible._

Jim came to an abrupt halt in front of the giant computer screens monitoring… everything. Every inch of Gotham City.

He almost bowled over with the immensity of it all. ‘ _You._ You’re the Batman.’

‘Yes.’

‘No.’ He paused, trying to breath. The air was cool and clean, but somehow it couldn’t seem to get past his throat. He tried to force himself to let go, stop seizing up, aware of Wayne’s proximity. ‘I need a moment to think.’

Something touched his shoulder.  ‘Jim-‘

‘Dammit Bruce, give me _some time_ to think.’

The hands fell away. ‘Of course.’

Jim walked in almost aimless circles, ostentatiously to take it in, but what he was really seeing was all the times they’d met; he and Batman on rooftops and dark alleyways, at crime scenes… at the back of his own goddamn house.

He closed his eyes but the memories are like a brand, hot and insistent.

_You’re beautiful Jim_

_I’m been watching you for a very long time._

A helpless, involuntary bark of laughter escaped from his mouth. He  _had_  been watching Jim for a very long time, hadn’t he? From behind a cowl.

Fuck everything to hell. Because no matter what he wants to think there’s a part of Jim, a sly and sinuous voice that whispered;  _but you aren’t that surprised, Jim, are you? Not really._

He quelled the dark voice within and took of his spectacles to pinch at the bridge of his nose. ‘Why?’

Bruce lifted his shoulders inelegantly. ‘I wanted us to work. The  _lies-_ It wouldn’t have worked with a mask between us.’

Jim shook his head. ‘No, I mean-‘ he felt his shoulders gripped, pulled almost flush against Bruce. A finger tracing the cleft of his mouth drew all the thought from his head.

‘Jim-‘

His eyelashes flutter at the finger, a rough, salty, maddening weight that traced his lips and tracked south, over his jaw.

‘I fell in love,’ Bruce Wayne said, and let Jim go. His lips twisted sardonically. ‘The truth’s really as simple as that.’

Jim exhaled. Bruce Wayne was in love with Jim Gordon.

He closed his eyes.  _The Batman_  was in love with- Jim immediately switched off that line of thought. That wasn’t the question Jim wanted to ask him, not really, but somehow it was enough. He’d worked with Batman long enough now, to know his aloof and possessive love, his single minded obsession and furious self-control.

_I fell in love._

And that was it, really. There wasn’t a bigger answer— to anything in the universe – than a reply like that. And somehow, even to a hardened old cop like Jim, the answer said enough: of the Batman’s motives; of Wayne’s. And why they had both chosen him, Jim Gordon. A simple man. A simple cop.

 It was enough to answer his initial question, and every question in between.

Almost shyly he looked into the grave, complex dark eyes of the man before him. Perhaps some part of Jim had always knew this.. nameless  _thing_ , would happen between them sooner or later. His tongue is a dry bone in his throat, so he swallowed a few times before saying ‘Ok.’

There was a brief pause, and a look of shock that made Bruce look slightly comical.  _‘Ok?’_

‘I get it,’ Jim says. ‘There’s no map. And no rules. But we can have an ending in mind, a-an.. agreement to arrive at the same place, at the same time-’ He broke off with a grimace. ‘Listen to me. I sound like a bloody TV serial.’

A strange look stole over Bruce’s features, like a mix of dread and disbelief.

‘And you should also make it up to me, all these months of lying. And for-’ Jim waved a vague hand between them ‘-having a really  _terrible_ definition of what courtship entails.’

Bruce Wayne smiled, and his smile was like a child’s; pure and full of joy. ‘Ok,’ he says huskily, and the word was perfect. It falls like perfection from his mouth, and turns into a different sort of perfection as his mouth was captured, and he surrenders finally, finally.. Jim closed his eyes and let himself go.

Then Bruce drew always first, a look of sudden concern on his face and Jim almost wanted to punch him. He could already tell who would be the worrier between them.

‘You’re all right. With all this,’ he whispered with wonder.

An eyebrow arched. ‘You sound disappointed it turn out to be so easy.

Bruce grinned. ‘Maybe I expected a more drawn out fight from the reputable Commissioner of Gotham.’

Jim’s eyes flattened. ‘Oh, I wouldn’t count on the upper hand just yet. I’ve a reputation for giving people a run for their money.’

‘You have  _no_  idea how much money I have.’

Jim gestured with his head at the tumbler. ‘Enough to get me another one of these? Do they come in blue?’

Bruce looked surprised again, like he couldn’t believe that Jim him actually had a sense of humour. Jim harrumphed, but graciously choose to overlook it- for now. 

After all, they had all the time in the world to find out.

*

 


End file.
